


Caged

by TheBodyBioelectric



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alex is scary, Alternate Universe - Gladiators, Angst, Blood and Gore, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Did I write this instead of writing other fic or doing my hw, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Like not a focus but like heads up, Slow Burn, Three guesses as to who I kill off (you don't like any of them), Weird Plot Shit, You Have Been Warned, but still supergirl, darker and edgier, idk what I've created, ish, yes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-26 21:30:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 42,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12566612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBodyBioelectric/pseuds/TheBodyBioelectric
Summary: Maggie Sawyer was investigating a human trafficking ring run by Roulette, and she's finally made a breakthrough on the location of where people are disappearing to. Unfortunately, Maggie's discovered it by being abducted by Roulette and thrown into a cage with someone... or something called Vulpes.The Space Gladiator AU that has Alex being a bad ass, Maggie being principled, Mon-hell being a shit for the two brief times he shows up, Max Lord being smarmy, and Roulette being evil





	1. Life's a Bitch

The woman put the small jagged piece of metal back into its hiding place in the wall of her small cage as she heard the approach of heavy footfalls. Twenty weeks. She had been on this rock twenty weeks. 28 neat sets of tallies on the side of the wall stared back at her, emotionless. 

“18 kills, 8 knock outs, and two maimings,” Said a tall reptilian guard as he slid a bowl of gruel into her cage. “And Braxor thought that that helgramite Spike had a chance. There’s a reason I always bet on you, Vulpes.”

She slammed her hands against the cage, letting out a guttural growl as the guard jumped back in surprise, before chuckling to himself. 

“That’s my favorite little demon,” He said to himself as he turned back to the cart and picked up another bowl of gruel to slide into the cage next to hers. “Never bet against Foxy, she’s a beast, that one.”

“Gurb, stop gloating and come help me. Roulette caught a human nosing around, said she’s supposed to be taken care of,” A particularly nasal guard said beyond the woman’s line of sight.

“Really? We barely have enough space as it is. Can’t we just dump her in the incinerator and be done with it?” Gurb said grumpily.

“You wanna argue with Roulette?” the other guard asked.

“Fine. I’ll throw her in with Vulpes, it’s basically the same thing,” Gurb said with a deep, throaty laugh. “She could use the extra protein.”

“And when Roulette asks what happened?” the other guard asked. Gurb shrugged.

“Poor notes on which species are territorial,” Gurb said. “It’s Lerim’s fault. The usual.”

“All right, whatever,” the guard said. “As long as you explain it.”

“All right, little piggy, let’s introduce you to whose having you for dinner,” Gurb said with a disgusting smile as he bent a woman’s arm Vulpes had never seen before back painfully while unlocking the cage door.

“Fuck you,” the woman said forcefully, despite her obvious fear of what she could hear but not see lurking at the back of the low, dark cage in front of her.

“This meat has some spice, Vulpes. Looks like you’ll have to work for your meal,” Gurb said with a laugh as he threw the woman into the cage and slammed the door behind her before walking away.

Vulpes let out a low growl at the stranger who had invaded her space and was now kneeling with her back to the cage as Vulpes stalked back and forth, trying to asses this new addition to her cramped living space.

“All right, I don’t know who or what you are, but I don’t particularly want to be a meal,” the woman said. Vulpes noticed that they stripped the woman of everything but her underwear and bra, exposing her dark skin and strong muscles in the low light. She carried herself like someone who was used to being in control. She was dangerous. But she hadn’t made a move yet, which meant that she could still be cowed. Vulpes continued to keep her distance while the other woman’s eyes adjusted to the gloom.

Narrowing her eyes, Vulpes shuffled forward cautiously, ready to spring either away or towards the woman who was now regarding her shape as it came out of the darkest part of the cage.

“All right, stay back,” the woman said in a low voice, like she was talking to a dog. Vulpes supposed there wasn’t much functional difference now anyway, so it felt strangely appropriate.

As she crawled forward, the woman eyed her warily, trying to find a position she could get into to best defend against her. When she shifted incorrectly and slipped slightly against the damp floor of the cave, the fox pounced.

The struggle was more intense than Vulpes had anticipated, given her superior size, position and, she assumed, training. Vulpes took several elbows to the ribs as she wrestled the other woman into submission, finally pining her to the floor in such a way that she would have to break her arm to get out of. Vulpes felt a strange heat inside her as she sat with the smaller woman pinned underneath her, writhing despite the futility of the action. It was the same sort of strange feelings she had occasionally felt with another enemy she had had to later run through with a sword.

Shaking her head, she concentrated on her original task.

Bending over the smaller woman, Vulpes bit her lightly on the space where the shoulder met the neck, not even hard enough to break the skin. Vulpes ignored the yelp of the smaller woman, and pulled back her hair with her free hand as she made eye contact. Letting out a deep growl, she held the woman’s gaze for several seconds, letting her know how little she was to be trifled with, before she calmly rolled off of her and returned to her corner.

“Gee, you know how to make a girl feel welcome,” the woman said as she slowly got up. “What the hell was that? Some kind of dominance thing? What, do you think I’m your bitch now or something?”

Vulpes continued to calmly look at the scowling woman.

“Am I supposed to thank you for not eating me? I mean, thanks, I guess, but can we skip the part where you bite me next time?” the woman said as she rubbed her neck before she stopped and eyed her suspiciously. “Unless you poisoned me and are just waiting for it to take effect.”

Vulpes shook her head.

“So, you at least understand me,” the woman said slowly. Vulpes narrowed her eyes and nodded.

“I guess we’ll table the biting thing for now,” the woman said. “My name’s Maggie Sawyer. What’s yours? The guard said it was Vulpes?”

Vulpes growled in anger at the name. It seemed wrong coming her lips.

“Ok, ok, what do you want to be called?” Maggie asked.

She considered answering. It would be nice to have someone she could talk to, and this place didn’t seem to have gotten to her yet. Vulpes narrowed her eyes as Maggie waited patiently.

“Do you speak English?” Maggie asked. “Hablas Español?”

The red head continued to stare at her.

“Parlez vous francais?” Maggie asked hopefully. The other woman continued to stare at her with cold eyes.

“Look, I’m trying here,” Maggie said apologetically. “Are you unable to talk?”

Vulpes continued to study the smaller woman.

“I’ll take that as a no then,” Maggie said with a roll of her eyes. “This place isn’t on earth, is it?”

Vulpes shook her head.

“Makes sense. The sun is the wrong color and I’m pretty sure the days are a couple hours shorter. Also, you know, aliens,” Maggie said with a wave of her hand. Her cellmate cocked her head to the side.

“What, you want to ask a question without using words? Who are you, my ex?” Maggie asked, intrigued by the flash of an upturn at the corner of Vulpes’ mouth before her guarded expression returned.

Lowering her voice, Maggie glanced out of the cage before she made eye contact and said, “Look, I’m a cop. Whatever, their up to, I can help.”

The woman seemed unimpressed, and Maggie was about to take a different tact when the woman finally spoke.

“Were,” Alex said, her throat raw with disuse for anything other than growling. 

“What?” Maggie said in surprise.

“Were. You were a cop. Now you’re in a cage,” Vulpes said angrily.

“I can still help us both get out of here,” Maggie said doggedly.

“Second Lesson: you aren’t a cop, you can’t help. You can only survive,” Vulpes said, and despite the seriousness of her tone Maggie was somewhat taken aback by how almost fragile the woman sounded.

“Oh? I suppose the first lesson was that you could deal with me anytime you’d like,” Maggie said in an unimpressed tone.

“That’s true, but no. The first lesson is that you have to fight to survive here,” Alex said.

“And yet here I am, alive, receiving your help,” Maggie said with an alarmingly disarming dimpled smile. “Must be my feminine wiles.”

“It’s a lesson, not real life, which starts now, by the way. And maybe I’m just bored and you’re not a threat, so I’m keeping you alive,” Alex said. 

“So I’m less like a friend and more like a potted plant,” Maggie said.

“More or less. Maybe a puppy,” Alex said as she took another drink of gruel. 

“You’re the one with the oral fixation,” Maggie said with a grin as Alex took a small spit take at the comment, earning a full laugh from Maggie.

“So, let’s start again. What’s your name?” Maggie asked as Alex leaned over and put the bowl near the cage wall.

“Alex. My name is Alex Danvers,” Alex said. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Danvers,” Maggie said. Alex stared at her for several seconds, sizing her up. She didn’t sound bitter about Alex launching herself at her earlier, despite her words, and Alex felt a pang of sadness as she thought about Kara’s warmth that this woman also seemed to possess. Shaking her head, Alex returned her attention to more practical matters.

“You really used to be a cop?” Alex asked.

“I was investigating the Ring Leader of this operation, but things went sideways,” Maggie said with a nod.

“You’re a master of understatement,” Alex said.

“Well, thanks,” Maggie said with a mildly annoyed look at Alex. “What do you do?”

“Kill people, mostly. In the arena,” Alex said.

“So, this place is some kind of Thunder dome then? Fights to the death, blood and sand, that kind of thing?” Maggie asked.

“Something like that,” Alex confirmed.

“How long have you been here?” Maggie asked. Alex simply nodded to the wall.

“Shit,” Maggie said as she saw the impressive number of marks. Alex nodded again.

“How often do you have to fight?” Maggie asked.

“Every 5 days,” Alex said, cocking her head to the side as she looked at Maggie.

“What?” Maggie asked.

“I’m glad I didn’t have to kill you,” Alex said.

“Why didn’t you? It kinda seems like your thing,” Maggie said as she subconsciously rubbed at her neck.

“Had a good feeling about you,” Alex said.

“Or you don’t like to kill as much as your trying to convince me you do,” Maggie said.

“Really,” Alex said. “Brave words from plant.”

“Really. Why try to intimidate me if you weren’t going to kill me and then give me advice? Because you don’t trust me, but you don’t want to kill me. You had no other reason to help me other than you want to,” Maggie said as a slight grin spread across her face, and Alex wondered why she took note of this woman’s dimples.

“Maybe. Maybe I’m just waiting to see if they cut off my food and you won’t spoil if you’re still alive,” Alex said with a shrug.

“Mmmm. So, what did you do before this?” Maggie asked.

“Scientist. Biochemistry,” Alex said.

“And you just happen to be able to live that many tally marks fighting to the death every week, Roulette broke her MO to abduct a thirty-year-old that people would notice was missing, and it was only for you,” Maggie asked incredulously. 

“My Babushka always said bad things come in threes,” Alex said, as her eyes narrowed.

“Look, I know I’m a cop, but I’m really only here for Roulette. Besides, what are the chances that we both make it out of here? What’s the harm in telling the truth?” Maggie asked. Alex frowned.

“I’m a fed,” Alex said. “Still a scientist, but I have other skills too.”

“I see,” Maggie said. “Were you working on Roulette too?”

“No. I came here on other matters,” Alex said. “Got into trouble, couldn’t get back, and then Roulette picked me up. I was supposed to be fodder for one of her better fighters.”

“But you didn’t go down easily,” Maggie guessed.

“He was a thoraxian, a big guy. I bit through his throat and he bled to death,” Alex said and Maggie shuddered slightly before gamely turning back to the taller woman’s steely gaze. “The crowd loved it. More importantly, the crowd was willing to pay to see it again.”

“So Roullette kept you as a fighter and named you Vulpes?” Maggie asked.

“The hair,” Alex said, waving at her head. “Lupus wouldn’t have really worked, and there’s a Roman theme to stick to.”

“Speaking of foxy, why aren’t you wearing any clothing?” Maggie asked, as her eyes flicked down to Alex’s chest for probably the eighth time during their conversation.

“You’ll see in about thirty seconds,” Alex said.

“What does that mean?” Maggie asked, which led to a pregnant pause. A click sounded, and Alex closed her eyes and put her head down seconds before water rushed down from the top of the cage, spraying everything in the cage. Maggie yelped at the sudden influx of cold water, trying to ward off the water futilely with her hands. After about ten seconds, foam poured out from the ceiling and Alex lathered it into her hair and over her entire body quickly before the foam turned back to cold water. With as much warning as it had started, it stopped suddenly. The whole thing couldn’t have taken more than a minute.

“You could have warned me that was coming,” A bedraggled Maggie said.

“This was more fun,” Alex said with a shrug, and she couldn’t help but grin briefly, before she remembered the huge blast of air that followed the soakings and closed her eyes again as she dried herself in the intense full minute blast.

Alex flipped her now mostly dry hair back to see a very disgruntled looking Maggie with hair blown all over the place, and Alex couldn’t help but smile at the crazy hair Maggie now sported.

“It’s a good look on you,” Alex said.

“Thanks,” Maggie said with a bemused voice. “Do you mind if I take off my now soaked underwear?”

“You know, a lot of women have a hard time getting their panties wet,” Alex said with a smirk as Maggie took off her soaked underclothes.

“Don’t quite your day job,” Maggie said with a bemused smirk. “So, not that I’m complaining but I’m a little surprised I’m not buried in a shallow grave out in the desert right now.”

“Roullette won’t kill you yet,” Alex said. “Not until she can wring some profit out of you.”

“Charming,” Maggie said. Alex shrugged. 

“She’s a business woman,” Alex said.

“She’s a psychopath,” Maggie said firmly.

“There’s not really much of a difference,” Alex said before she slid the bowl of gruel towards herself before she picked it up again and began drinking from the bowl.

“Ok, how did I get soaked but that’s fine?” Maggie asked irritably. 

“It wasn’t in the splash zone,” Alex said as she pointed to two distinct colors on the floor. Maggie was sitting on a blue zone while a narrow strip on the side was painted red, which held a rolled-up blanket and a water bowl, as well as what looked like a water dispenser and some folded rough spun cloth. The blue section funneled down slightly to a small three-inch hole in the floor.

“I suppose that’s the toilet,” Maggie said. “Yelp for this place must blow.”

Alex let out a small snort. Taking one last sip from the bowl of gruel, Alex handed the bowl to Maggie.

“No, you shouldn’t. I appreciate the offer, but you should keep up your strength. You’re the one fighting,” Maggie said. 

“You’ll have to fight too. Eventually,” Alex said, still offering the remaining gruel. 

“Thank you,” Maggie said as she took it. “I grew up in Nebraska, but I think this officially makes you the strangest white person I know.”

“Thanks,” Alex said with a wry grin. “Nebraska, huh? When did you move to the big city?”

Maggie frowned slightly as she said, “How did you know that I moved?”

“No twang, you identified yourself a cop and not a sheriff, and you hold yourself like a city cop,” Alex said. “You move too fast.”

“Not bad for a fed,” Maggie said. “Over fifteen years ago. National City Police Department. And I’m a detective, not just a cop. What alphabet soup do you work for?”

“FBI, also out of National city. You probably pulled me over for a speeding ticket at some point,” Alex said with a small curl of her mouth, and Maggie raised an eyebrow.

“Awful long way from your jurisdiction,” Maggie said.

“We didn’t know we were headed out of the US. It was a pursuit,” Alex said. “Never follow a perp through a portal, apparently.”

“I see,” Maggie said, sounding unconvinced. “And what’s a biochemist doing chasing suspects?”

“Getting stranded on a moon outside of all the protocol books,” Alex said back evenly. 

“So why the lie earlier?” Maggie asked.

“I don’t know you,” Alex said as she reached over to the pile of cloth and pulled out a simple, undyed tunic she slipped on over her head, and Maggie had to school herself to not gasp at the lattice work of thin scars on the woman’s back. “Didn’t want to give away the store without getting something in return.”

“So, what do you get for this gruel?” Maggie asked as she looked down hesitantly at the bowl Alex had handed her, trying to avoid the other woman’s eyes.

“Hopefully someone to talk to for longer than a week,” Alex said. “The guards are terrible conversationalists.”

“You seemed to be growling up quite a storm with them before,” Maggie said teasingly, grateful to be back on familiar ground.

“Yeah, but method acting makes it so hard to leave work at work,” Alex said drolly as Maggie took an experimental sip of the gruel, eyebrows knitting together.

“Why does this taste like cereal milk?” Maggie asked.

“They just shoved a bunch of nutrients and calories into a paste. I’m amazed it tastes as palatable as it does,” Alex said.

“Great,” Maggie said as she took another sip. “I assume this is our three squares?”

“Hey, cut them some slack, they worked so hard on the other accommodations,” Alex said as she reached over and picked up a second tunic from the pile and handed it to Maggie.

“Thanks,” Maggie said as she put down the gruel and pulled it on over her head. It obviously didn’t fit her well, the loose material hanging off her shoulders and if she could stand up straight the hem would hank down to her shins while it barely came to Alex’s knees.

“Gurb should be by with clothes and a blanket for you tomorrow,” Alex said.

“Sounds great,” Maggie said. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to share tonight?”

“Sure,” Alex said with a shrug. “If you hog the blanket I will bite you, for real this time.”

“I guess you did buy me dinner first,” Maggie said with a small smirk and Alex rolled her eyes as she unfolded the blanket, turning away from Maggie as she threw half of it over herself and rested her head on her arm.

“Good night, Sawyer,” Alex declared.

Finishing the last slurp of gruel Maggie took a moment to consider the truly strange woman in front of her. She supposed that some level of strangeness would necessarily result from the sort of captivity that Alex had been in for months, but there was another aspect to this woman that seemed to stick in Maggie’s brain. She didn’t get intuitive feelings like she was having often, but when she did it always meant that there was a missing piece of the puzzle. 

And God help her, Maggie Sawyer was intrigued by missing puzzle pieces.

Shaking her head, Maggie lifted up the small section of blanket Alex had left her and curled up next to the well-muscled woman. It was strange, seeing the previously in turns vicious and gruffly protective woman resting so peacefully, her regular breaths giving away none of the fierceness lying underneath. Maggie had no doubt the woman wasn’t sleeping yet, merely observing her with her eyes closed as she waited for Maggie herself to fall asleep first, but she understood the guardedness Alex was showing her. If their positions were reversed, Maggie would do the same thing. It was like befriending a rescue dog.

Maggie’s last thought before she fell asleep was that she was glad she was a dog person.


	2. Dream Team

Alex knew this place well. She seen it enough times now, it almost seemed like an old friend at this point.

Turning towards a shrieking sound in the inky blackness, Alex emptied her clip into the nearest group of larval aliens, running back to the extraction point as she slid in another clip. The sound of the unearthly shrieks coming from her targets reverberated off the damp rock walls. For genetically engineered super weapons, they seemed to have a definite weakness to being shot repeatedly, but Alex supposed that was a byproduct of designing a creature that fed off electromagnetic energy. She had made the unfortunate discovery when her laser gun had charged one of the larva to its full super powered adult phase, ripping apart Collins and Tanaka before she had managed to kill it.

Alex felt a sinking feeling when Greene clasped her shoulder.

“There’s no fucking ladder, Sir!” Green said, panic edging into his voice.

“What do you mean there’s no ladder? That’s our exfil!” Alex screamed back before she picked off one of the larvae crawling up the ceiling towards the sewer grate that was the only entrance or exit easily accessible from the portal device Winn insisted on calling the stargate.

“It looks like the metal supports have been sheared in half,” Green said as Alex continued to fire at the gaps of the corpses barricading the larvae from swarming the three remaining DEO agents. “Like it was just ripped off. Recently, too.”

“Who do we have up there? Can they throw down a rope?” Alex yelled. 

“No one’s answering comms, sir,” Bana said.

“They’re supposed to be there!” Alex said in anger.

“It’s just static,” Bana dejectedly. 

“Have you tried yelling real loud?” Alex said in exasperation.

“Oh, you could try that, but they won’t hear you,” came a familiar voice from above the hole. “An enemy patrol attacked, I tried to stop them, but I was the only one left. Darndest thing.”

“Mon-El! Throw us a rope,” Alex yelled up as she saw the barricade start to lurch uncomfortably.

“What’s the magic word?” Mon-El asked.

“Not the time for a bit, asshole! Throw us the rope!” Alex said as she unclipped and threw a grenade. “Frag!”

All three agents flattened themselves as the grenade exploded, ripping apart larvae in the tunnel and causing horrible shrieking sounds to echo in the tunnel. Alex noted with grim satisfaction that the barricade had stopped moving.

“See, that’s the thing, Alex. I don’t take orders from you, no matter how bossy you are,” Mon-El said. “And you give me orders an awful lot. It might make one think you don’t know how the chain of command works. It’s downright disrespectful.” 

“Mon-El! Rope!” Alex said as she felt her stomach sink past her knees. She didn’t knew why she bothered. He never threw the rope. But she got angry every time he didn’t just the same.

“You just don’t learn, do you? I’m not giving you a rope. There wasn’t anything I could do to save you,” Mon-El said with a small grin. “Seeing as we’re on a planet where you’ve managed to get most of your elite DEO team killed, I think Kara will believe me when I tell her there was nothing I could have done to save any of you. And I doubt they’ll ever find the bodies.”

“Are you fucking serious?” Alex said. “Is this about what I said to Kara?”

“Of course this is about what you said to Kara!” Mon-El said as his face shifted suddenly to an angry contortion of his usually disinterested features as he leaned over the tunnel entrance with near demonic intensity.

“You son of a bitch!” Alex screamed in frustration as she fired her pistol up at Mon-El, who quickly pulled back from the lip.

“Have fun with your friends, Al,” Mon-El called as he walked away. “It’s been real! A real test of my patience!”

“It’s not even good wordplay,” Alex grumbled as she turned back to the barricade.

“Fuck, it’s game over, this is fucking game over,” Greene said between gasping for air.

“You’re allowed to die when I say so,” Alex growled as she smacked Greene’s helmet with an open palm. “We’re getting out of here. The only other way out is through the spillway, right? We’ll just get out that way.”

“That’s almost three miles away,” Bana said quietly. “We don’t have enough ammunition.”

“Yeah we do. See that water? We’re in a rock cavern. It has to flow out of here through that drainage eventually. Follow that, we get out of here in one piece,” Alex said as she removed the grate cover at their feet.

“With all due respect sir, you can’t know that,” Bana said.

“I do. Besides, the other option is dying,” Alex growled. “And I’m not dying because some frat boy wants to stay in my sister’s pants, and neither are you. Let’s go.”

Alex slid into the uncomfortably narrow pipe and fell several feet before she felt herself become redirected sideways before being launched into a pool of pitch black water. Upon surfacing, Alex felt her way around as she treaded water. Eventually, she came across a large rock pathway cut into the side of the tunnel. She shivered as she pulled herself out of the freezing cold water. 

After several minutes, she realized that she hadn’t heard either Bana or Greene follow her into the water. Seconds later, she heard automatic weapons fire echo ominously from the grate opening she had fallen out of. Amidst the screams of injured Alien Larvae, she heard first Greene and then Bana cry out. 

The gunfire stopped shortly after that, like it always did. 

Alex pushed her sopping hair back from her eyes, blinking back tears. She still couldn’t save them, even with how familiar this was. Alex bit back a sob as she focused on what she could do. She could still end this.

Taking several deep breaths, Alex drew her pistol and slowly started walking along the gently flowing canal. As she moved further along the canal, the shrieks of the Alien larvae looking for her grew more and more distant, Alex noticed a cool draft moving through the tunnel. 

Alex walked along the drafty, eerily silent tunnel to the old hideout recently overrun by what J’onn had identified as a weapon of war the original owners had long ago lost control of. Alex cursed Mon-El and whatever scientists had decided to cook up such an irresponsible creation. She kept herself alert as possible to try to block out the loss of her team until she could get herself back to base and avenge their pointless deaths. It wouldn’t bring them back, but it was all that she had left to do for them.

After what seemed like an eternity walking through the dark cabin, she heard a throaty rumble from deeper in the cavern she was traveling along. Checking her ammunition, and realizing with dismay that she had only nine rounds left, Alex squatted lower and slowed down.

As the sound got louder, Alex finally recognized it as the deep rumble of falling water up ahead. Breaking out her stance, she noticed a pin prick in the darkness up ahead. Jogging forward, Alex could see that the pinprick was becoming larger with the rumbling of the water fall. Excitedly, Alex realized that this could be a way out. All she would have to do was hike the ten or so miles back to the portal gate. While she didn’t exactly relish the idea, she at least had a path forward now.

After what felt like an eternity, Alex finally made it to the cave opening. The stream poured out into a flat valley that Alex could see for miles before the large valley fell into the horizon. In the distance, Alex could see several structures along the river, although they were too far away to see what they were. Given that the moon she was on was known as a sort of intergalactic smuggler’s cove for a range of illicit activity, Alex figured it would be better to let sleeping dogs lie and stick to the long hike back to the portal.

Looking out over the edge of the water fall, Alex frowned as she saw the sheer drop down a cliff face on either side before the water crashed into a large pool. A shriek behind her alerted Alex to danger she had previously missed. Spinning around, Alex fired the last of her bullets into a solitary larva that had found her, killing it before it could charge her. However, Alex heard a huge number of shrieks further down the tunnel as she heard a horde of the creatures coming. 

Looking over the edge once again, Alex couldn’t see any way down the cliff face. Turning back one last time, Alex could just see the lead larvae coming towards her down the tunnel. Making a split-second decision, Alex took a deep breath and turned around.

Alex launched herself into empty space.

Looking up, Alex could see Mon-El standing over a cowering form, shouting at it on the cliff face. Alex shook her head, realizing that she shouldn’t be able to see anything other than larvae at the cliff entrance. Seconds before she hit the water from the extraordinarily long fall, she identified the figure Mon-El was now kicking.

“Kara!” Alex shouted as she hit the water, sitting bolt upright from where she lay in her cell. Her wild eyes locked on another figure in the cage who startled at the sound, and Alex launched herself at them on instinct.

“Where’s Kara?” Alex said, voice rough from sleep and desperation as she used her weight to pin the smaller figure under her. “Where?”

“What the fuck, Danvers,” Came the startled voice underneath her. Suddenly, everything snapped back to Alex’s memory. She remembered floating down the river, being taken care of by poor alien farmers only to be sold into slavery as soon as she got better. Roulette’s fights. Her cage. Maggie.

Blinking several times, Alex shifted off the smaller woman with a mumbled apology.

“Who’s Kara?” Maggie asked.

“It’s not important. Go back to sleep,” Alex said gruffly as she flopped back down on the hard ground and wrapped her half of the blanket around her.

“It didn’t sound not important. Is she your girlfriend?” Maggie asked quietly.

“Why would you assume- no. I’m not gay,” Alex said, and she hated how her voice almost cracked at saying the word, hated how she felt like she was scrambling to justify her tone. “Honestly, we’re in a space prison and were probably both going to die here, one way or another, and you’re worried that I’m gay?”

“Whoa, ok, no need to jump all over me for a third time. Just asking,” Maggie said, throwing her hands up.

“You shouldn’t,” Alex barked, before mumbling. “Homophobia follows humanity to the stars.”

“Oh, for chrissakes Danvers, I’m gay. I was just wondering who Kara is,” Maggie said in exasperation. 

“Oh, um. I’m sorry,” Alex mumbled for a second time in five minutes as she sat back up and failed to look Maggie in the face.

“It’s fine,” Maggie said, waving her hand. “It’s just that you seemed confused that Kara wasn’t there when you woke up, so I assumed.”

“It’s all right,” Alex said with a small blush, unable to push a string of thoughts about the small detective back into the place they belonged for several seconds as something half remembered flitted into and out of thought. 

“Who is she?” Maggie asked again, as softly as before, and Alex felt even more embarrassed.

“My sister. She’s adopted, she lost her entire world when she younger, and it wasn’t unusual for her to crawl into my bed when she got scared. It was always worse at night, when the stars were out,” Alex said. “She’s not in a good situation right now.”

Maggie tilted her head at Alex.

“Is she here too?” Maggie asked.

“No, she’s back on Earth. But she’s dating the guy who sold me out,” Alex said. “And she doesn’t know how dangerous he is.”

“Danvers, you’re the one in serious shit,” Maggie said. “This place is made of people like that.”

“I’m supposed to be, though. She isn’t,” Alex said. “Besides, I know the shit I’m in. She doesn’t.”

Maggie seemed to digest the information for several seconds, seemingly trying to piece together discordant information before she moved on.

“He FBI too?” Maggie asked curiously.

“Yeah,” Alex said dismissively before shaking her head. “He double backed, turned off the gate once he got through.”

“During the pursuit?” Maggie asked.

“Yes. No more questions. Sleep,” Alex said authoritatively as she rolled over. “You have a big day tomorrow.”

“What is it?” Maggie asked curiously.

“If I tell you won’t sleep. Rule three is that you need your sleep here. Now shut up, detective,” Alex said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Maggie muttered quietly as she pulled the thin blanket tighter to her as she stared at the ceiling in the pitch black. It took longer than before for her to nod off, adrenaline coursing through her from Alex’s screaming and ominous words and from trying to make the puzzle pieces of the occasionally feral woman she was sharing a cage with fit together properly. However, she contented herself with the knowledge that she had picked up several important clues about this woman.

Hopefully she survived long enough for it to matter.


	3. Killing in the Name of

Maggie awoke to the sound of a loud, blaring klaxon that sounded for a full thirty seconds before it shut off. Shaking her head groggily, Maggie looked over to her strange cellmate, seeing that she was turned away from Maggie. She was no longer dressed in the rough spun cloth she was before, but had changed into a loincloth and was busy wrapping her breasts with a very long strip of similar material. Her position, facing away from Maggie, gave the detective an excellent view of the woman’s rippling muscles under the scarred skin of her back. There seemed to more-light and activity now, and Maggie supposed that she had been thrown in the cage during a period of sleep for the fighters.

“What does that alarm mean?” Maggie asked. 

“It means we fight today,” Alex said grimly as she turned around, tying off the end of the strand. “Get dressed, they’ll be by in ten minutes.”

“Glad I got captured wearing a sports bra,” Maggie muttered as she slipped on her now dry underclothes. When she reached down to put on the tunic back on, Alex caught her hand.

“Don’t. It’s too loose, it’ll provide too many hand holds,” Alex said with a nod to her hair. “You’re gonna want to put your hair up too.”

“Look, Danvers, I appreciate what you’ve had to do to survive here, but I don’t know if I’m really willing to just let some human trafficking piece of shit decide what I get to do,” Maggie said with a scowl. 

“All right, detective,” Alex said coldly as her eyes narrowed. “What’s your plan, refuse to fight? Maybe nobly sacrifice yourself? Because let me tell you, dying in the arena is only going to feed Roulette’s view count on the holo net, so you’ll only have died to make her richer. Is that really what you want?”

“I’m not going to kill an innocent person for her. If I have to die to make that happen, that’s what I signed up for when I became a cop,” Maggie said with equal grimness. 

Alex and Maggie held each other in glare for several seconds, both sizing the other one up. Alex finally relented first, huffing out a deep sigh from the bottom of her diaphragm.

“You’ll be matched up against another novice. Go hard at them right out of the gate,” Alex said. “Do enough damage and they’ll probably let you get away with not killing them.”

“So what, beat someone unconscious to save them? That’s your plan?” Maggie asked.

“It’s better than yours,” Alex said. “And if you insist on being some kind of hero, it’s probably the only way to keep the both of you from getting killed.”

“For someone who isn’t a hero you sure seem to have put a lot of thought in how to save people,” Maggie said.

“Fun thought experiment,” Alex said. “It was pretty boring before you got here.”

“Of course. Nothing to do with being in a career that’s about saving people,” Maggie said.

“My career was about justice,” Alex said.

“You hunted down criminals on the loose. I’d say that’s about saving people,” Maggie said.

“You’re confusing me wisth my sister,” Alex said. “She’s willing to be a print reporter because she believes in people.”

“Of course,” Maggie said as Gurb wheeled a small cage up to the door of the cage that Maggie and Alex were both in.

“A shame Vulpes didn’t eat you. Could have sold the vids of that myself,” Gurb said with slight disappointment as he opened both cage’s doors. “You won’t last long in the arena though, snitch. All right, Vulpes, you know the drill.”

“Alex?” Maggie asked.

“I’ll be back. Stick to the plan,” Alex said seriously before she crawled into the smaller cage, the door shutting behind her.

“Good luck,” Maggie said quietly.

“You too,” Alex said. Opening her mouth to say more, she instead screamed in pain at the sudden electrical shock Gurb gave her through the bars of her cage with a long rod.

“Come on, Vulpes. No time for chatting, you have to get that game face on and win me some more money,” Gurb said cheerily as he rolled the cart down the alley. Alex responded by impotently slamming her hands against the sides of the cage wall as Gurb laughed. Maggie felt bile build in the back of her throat as anger surged through her.

Maggie didn’t have time to stew for long. Almost as soon as Alex had been wheeled out of sight, she heard the entire row of cage doors ominously creak open. Thirty or so poorly dressed, confused looking beings from across the galaxy stumbled out of their cages. Before they could get their bearings, a group of guards started shoving them down the hallway in a herd. 

As they stumbled out of the end of the long hallway, Maggie had to cover her eyes at the sudden flood of bright red sunlight as she heard a huge crowd give its approval at their arrival.

“Now that we have our lucky new contestants in the arena, it’s time for the splitting!” An amplified Roullette called out to the bleary and bewildered people down in the sand, and again thousands of beings cheered their approval. 

As Maggie’s eyes adjusted, she could see the giant stadium she found herself in. It was like some futuristic sports arena with sandy dirt in a large ring in the middle and doors lining the outside of the ring. Maggie didn’t have long to speculate on the doors before she had new information to process. Several Guards moved forward and began looking over every prisoner for several seconds before they smeared either green, red or blue paint on the front of the terrified beings, over clothes or on bare skin, and shoving them into groups based on their color.

“Now, clear the field and let the trials begin!” Roulette called. The groups were shoved into three different color coordinated corners, where all but two were put in a small fenced off area. Maggie had to stand on her tip toes to see over the top of the other greens as the guards squared the two prisoners in the arena against each other. With a drop of one of the guard’s hands, the bout began to the crowd’s expectant cheer.

Maggie saw the two trembling combatants, both roughly human sized and shaped, slowly start circling each other to the jeers of the guards and the crowd. Becoming inpatient, one of the guards shoved on prisoner against the other from behind, bowling both of them over. As they half-heartedly grappled in the sand, the crowd booed loudly at the lack of impressive violence. Soon, the two had separated again and started circling each other again. 

Again becoming impatient, the guards struck at both prisoners with batons, forcing them together in a series of savage blows. Finally, one of the prisoners decided to attack, throwing several quick punches at the other before backing away. The crowd cheered as they saw their first taste of blood between the prisoners. 

Enraged, the second figure now attacked, and the fight began in earnest. It looked like neither fighter particularly knew what they were doing, given the sloppy technique both beings used, but it was violent and bloody. Eventually, one of the fighters delivered a lucky upper cut with a surge of adrenaline, bowling the other fighter over completely. The first fighter began to viciously stomp the fighter on the ground, and despite her years of witnessing violence as a cop Maggie felt her stomach roil and had to fight the urge to look away. Many in the fenced in area did, but looked back at the now one-sided fight at the guard’s threats and occasional hits with the same type of shock stick that had been used on Alex.

Eventually, the guards pulled the two prisoners apart, and the victorious prisoner had his hand raised above his head to the cheers of the crowd as two more prisoners were shoved out into the arena. The motionless prisoner bleeding on the ground was dragged back towards the cages, leaving a trail of blood behind him in the sand.

The next three fights all proceeded in much the same way, the clearly unwilling participants overcoming their hesitance to fight to avoid the shouts and night sticks of the guards. However, by the last bout, Maggie found herself alone in the waiting area. As the last fight progressed in front of her, Maggie felt an uneasy feeling settle into her stomach. 

At the end of the fight, the guards pushed Maggie out into the center of the arena, and Maggie could see an unpaired blue fighter being pushed forward from the other side of the arena. Maggie nearly jumped when she heard Roulette’s booming voice come from the speakers. 

“And now, for the last exhibition bout, we have a special fight for you. Captured on Earth, Detective Maggie Sawyer wanted to arrest me, your most gracious host, after posing as one of you fine free beings looking for a little honest entertainment,” Roulette called as the crowd erupted in jeers. “All for some misguided attempt to save our fighter from the blue corner, Melissa, from herself after she willingly entered the ring. Being a generous woman, I’ve decided to give the snitch a chance to regain her honor and for the careless girl who led this viper to us to redeem herself. It’s a redemption story tonight, gentle beings, but who will redeem themselves in the ring? Let Lady Luck decide!”

The crowd erupted in cheers as Maggie felt her stomach sink as she realized she was going to have to fight the 18-year-old high school senior that had given her enough of a lead to find Roulette’s Earthbound operation when she had gotten in over her head. Maggie had told her mother that she would bring her back, had talked to god knows how many of her friends as she pieced together a time line of her disappearances, and now she stood opposite of her in the very arena she was trying to save her from. 

Screwing her eyes shut, she took several deep breaths as she steeled herself for the guard’s arm to drop.

“I really hope you know what you’re talking about, Danvers,” Maggie muttered, seconds before the guard’s arm fell. 

Maggie didn’t wait for the high school senior to begin circling her, instead opting to rush her at the beginning. Maggie caught the girl by surprise, easily sidestepping the jab intended to slow her approach before she delivered a vicious knee to the girl’s solar plexus. As the girl involuntarily doubled over, Maggie remembered her father’s boxing advice and aimed a hook with her right that connected directly behind the jaw. The woman crumpled like a sack of potatoes, knocking both of them to the ground from the awkward angle of her fall and Maggie’s short reach. Wiping her stinging forehead as she got up, Maggie realized she had a small gash from a rock on the arena floor.

Maggie immediately jumped onto the girl’s unconscious form to the roar of the crowd, aiming rapid punches into the girl’s chest and torso that she hoped looked more impressive than they actually were. Apparently, it worked, because she was almost immediately pulled off the girl and with her hand raised above her head in triumph to the crowd’s approving cheer.

“Our resident snitch has some fire! An impressive first outing,” Roulette called to the crowd as Maggie stifled a sigh of relief as she was ushered out of the middle of the arena towards a fourth fenced in area where the other victors were gathered. “She might find her true calling here. Give it up for Sawyer the Savage!”

The crowd cheered their approval at the name while what looked like a maintenance crew came out and quickly started to remix the sand with large rakes.

“And now, kicking off your main event fight, it’s a classic tale of biped vs. savage beast,” Roulette announced and the crowd cheered louder in anticipation. “The young upstart, with 5 kills and a maiming, coming from the little moon of Putran just trying to make it in the big Arena, fresh off his victory against the feral white Martian Imperare, comes Occisor Maximus!”

The crowd cheered loudly, and Maggie felt a strange pang of anxiety for her gruff cellmate at the prospect of fighting the large alien entering the arena, waving his trident and shield at the crowd. Putting his arms down, he struck several strong man poses to show off his rippling muscles, the display largely unhindered by the small loincloth and face covering helmet he was wearing.

“And you all now the beast he faces tonight,” Roulette said, pausing at the near deafening uproar as a large cage secured with chains was dragged out onto the field. “She’s ended every one of her fights with her teeth as red as her hair, she’s the clever fox, the cagey veteran, the ever victorious: Vulpes!”

The crowd began howling in unison at the end of the introduction like some kind of sports cheer. Maggie realized that Alex had been understating how large of a fanbase she had significantly. Maggie was just beginning to comprehend the sheer scope of Roulette’s operation. If it had been going on long enough that such a large crowd of casual spectators knew a fan cheer for a fighter who wasn’t even in the main event, Roulette’s operation was so much larger than the comparatively tiny cage fights she hosted on earth. With a shudder Maggie realized that her Earth fights were probably Roulette expanding into a new market, which meant that she was big enough to start franchising.

Turning her attention back to the arena, she saw a single guard cautiously edge forward and rip a lock off the chains on the door of the cage before beating a hasty retreat to the guard box. Nearly as soon as the door was opened, Alex burst into the arena snarling and moving on all fours, covered in only a loincloth and chest wrap she had been in that morning. Maggie did a double take to make sure that this was the same woman she had been coming to understanding, as the woman before her seemed completely feral. She was growling and pacing back and forth, her single focus on Occisor, exactly like she had been when Maggie had first met her. 

Maggie’s eyes narrowed as she tried to piece together Alex’s behavior into a logical pattern. Was this some kind of stage persona Alex had cultivated like she been encouraging Maggie to do? Was it something deeper, something in her past that was causing this response? Was her cellmate simply unhinged?

Maggie realized she couldn’t answer any of these question as the large alien turned his body towards the woman half his size pacing in front of him. Occisor bent down into a fighting stance, his shield in front and his trident ready, as he waited patiently for Alex to make the first move.

“Let the fight, begin!” Roulette said dramatically, followed by a roar of approval before the crowd went silent in anticipation.

Occisor and Alex circled one another cautiously, Alex growling and Occisor making several obvious feints with his trident. Unlike the previous fights, the guards made no move to push the fighters together, but rather cheered on their respective fighter. Maggie felt her apprehension mounting as she wondered how Alex, seemingly unarmed, had any chance against the armed and armored hulking alien she was fighting. 

Suddenly, Occisor made his move. Thrusting rapidly with his trident, Occisor charged at Alex, forcing her back even as she gracefully dodged the onslaught. Suddenly, Alex took a step inside of Occisor’s reach, and struck at the hand holding the trident. However, Occisor seemed to be expecting this move, and swinging his shield arm in a circle almost impossibly gracefully for a being his size managed to hit Alex squarely in the side with a loud clang. The Crowd gasped as Alex flew to the ground as Occisor lined up his trident to skewer Alex. Maggie felt her breath hitch as the trident flew forward.

Alex’s incredible speed was the only thing saved her. Twisting her body around nearly in half, the trident only barely scraped her back as it went by and buried itself deep into the sandy soil of the arena. Reaching behind her in one fluid motion, Alex used Occisor’s wrist and the imbedded trident to swing herself around in an impressive gymnastic display, landing a vicious kick to the side of Occisor’s helmet that rung out clearly across the arena. The crowd roared their approval as Occisor stumbled backwards and Alex rolled over on the ground back into a low crouch.

The trident now lay between them, still embedded in the ground. Alex recovered first and made a move towards it, but Occisor was closer and managed to cut in front of Alex, aiming a blow with his shield at her chest. Adjusting to the incoming shield, Alex slid underneath it feet first, driving her sliding heel into Occisor’s kneecap. Howling in pain, Occisor pivoted away and conceded the trident to Alex. 

Occisor and Alex now circled each other cautiously, Occisor with his shield and single piece of shoulder armor and Alex with Occisor’s trident in both of her hands. Maggie noticed that Occisor was limping slightly on his wounded knee, while Alex had multiple lacerations and a large bruise already forming on her back. 

Alex now took the initiative, lunging forward with calm stabs at the peripheries of Occisor’s defenses, aiming at his legs, his shoulder and his head, making him constantly move the heavy metal shield to defend against Alex’s thrusts. Underneath the facemask of his helmet, Maggie could see fear in Occisor’s eyes now. 

She couldn’t see anything behind Alex’s widely blown pupils as she continued to gracefully beat back the large alien with his own weapon.

Eventually, Alex goaded Occisor into trying to counter attack. Seeming to overextend a thrust, Occisor tried to take advantage by rushing inside of her guard with his shield held out in front of him. Alex almost casually side stepped the attack while tripping the large alien with the back of trident, sending him crashing to ground painfully. He quickly rolled to his feet, Alex hardly giving him time to get his shield up as she relentlessly pressed her advantage. 

Soon, Occisor tried a second time to counter attack, this time by deflecting and then attempting to grab the trident’s shaft. Alex pulled the trident back too quickly, however, and Occisor screamed as his hand was ripped open by the wicked hooks in the end of the trident. Alex used the temporary distraction to jab the large alien in the leg and was rewarded with another howl of pain.

However, Alex had miscalculated for the first time in the match. The trident’s hooks became stuck in Occisor’s leg as Alex tried to pull it out. With a bellow, Occisor smashed the shaft of the spear with his shield, leaving Alex with only a short, splintered stick. 

Seemingly un-phased, Alex threw the small stick at her opponent’s head. The large alien easily dodged the stick instinctively, but Alex had already jumped inside of his guard. Maggie gasped at the thought of the waspish woman grappling with the much more powerfully built gladiator, but Alex seemed to have no problem at close range. Slamming her foot into the base of the trident’s head as she climbed up the taller being’s body, she drove it further into the flesh of his leg as they both fell to the ground. 

Once he was on the ground, it was over. Alex rained down blows on the prostrate alien’s body with clinical efficiency, slamming into his exposed throat and stomach over and over again. Occisor’s only real chance to get her off of him, a surprise hook with his shield arm, was anticipated by Alex, who caught the edges of his shield and twisted hard. Maggie and the rest of the arena heard the sickening snap and accompanying high pitched, gurgling wail Occisor made, seconds before he was cut off by Alex bending over and viciously biting his neck while he was too wracked in pain to respond. 

Maggie felt sick to her stomach as the crowd cheered, Alex looking up at them with half-crazed eyes and blood streaming from her mouth.

“19 Kills for the Terran Terror, the cagiest fox we’ve ever seen, the baddest bitch around: Vulpes!” Roulette declared from her perch, and the crowd erupted again as a group of half a dozen guards rushed out onto the field with the shock sticks, herding the snarling woman back into her cage.

Maggie felt a rock settle into the pit of her stomach as she watched the shaking cage carted out of the arena.

Afterwards, the champions of the day were forced to watch several more brutal fights. Only two out of the five ended non-lethally. They were then herded back into the cage room and directed back to their individual cells. A short while later, Gurb rolled a still snarling, growling Alex in her cage up to the cage door again. 

“Now you get to deal with her in a bad mood, Snitch,” Gurb said as she pulled up the gate and a growling Alex stalked out of the cage, still bloody teeth bared. Once Alex was fully inside, the door shut behind her and Gurb pulled the cage away as he chuckled to himself. “I doubt she’ll want to talk things out this time. Good luck, lunch!”

“Alex?” Maggie said in an unsure voice. “Alex, it’s me. It’s Detective Sawyer.”

Alex’s growl shifted to a lower register as she continued forward, slowly putting herself into Maggie’s personal space as Maggie said the first Hail Mary in her head in over a decade. 

“Alex,” Maggie said in what she hoped was a reassuring voice. “Alex, there’s no threat. You’re safe here. Safe.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed slightly, but her growl stopped as she had made it all the way across the cage and was now leaning into Maggie’s face, inches away. Finally pausing, Alex sniffed, actually sniffed, near the crook of Maggie’s neck for several seconds. Then Alex gave Maggie’s shoulder a soft head butt before she curled up into a fetal position next to Maggie, resting with her head and shoulders against Maggie’s thigh. 

“Good to know that I’m still not on the menu,” Maggie said lightly as she let her hand fall to Alex’s head, absentmindedly scratching her scalp as Alex snuggled in to her position against Maggie. They sat that way for several minutes, Maggie scratching Alex’s head with Alex silently curled up against the other woman’s thigh. Maggie wondered again how she had managed to land in this strange situation.

Finally, Alex broke the silence.

“Thank you,” She said with a scratchy voice.

“What are you thanking me for? You’re the one that gave me the advice that probably kept that girl alive for another week,” Maggie said.

“I meant for not freaking out. About… you know. Vulpes,” Alex said. “Talking me down. Most people wouldn’t.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what is up with the growling and biting?” Maggie asked. “You talk almost like you aren’t in control of it.”

“It’s hard to explain, but I’m not, really. Do you know what a Golem is?” Alex asked, sitting up and turning to face Maggie, and Maggie was relieved to see Alex’s face returned to her normal thoughtful, if pensive, self. Maggie noticed that she missed the loss of contact against her thigh immediately, and kicked herself for continuing to be so useless when she was around pretty girls.

“A big mud monster?” Maggie asked, hopefully covering for her wandering thoughts.

“Kind of. It means Half-formed because it’s a half-formed husk of a person made out of clay, but that’s not the important part. There are a lot of different stories, but the one everyone knows is about the Golem of Prague. The story goes that a Jewish Rabbi created the Golem so that the Jewish Ghetto would be protected from Pogroms by putting its name on a piece of paper put in its mouth that animated it but prevented it from speaking,” Alex said. “Eventually the Rabbi lost control of it, and so he had to take the paper out its mouth.”

“So are you the Golem or the Rabbi?” Maggie asked.

“Vulpes is the Golem, and I’m just along for the ride,” Alex said grimly. “But it’s definitely something part of me, too. It’s weird.”

“Is it like another personality?” Maggie asked softly.

“Sort of,” Alex said. “Not that specifically though. The important thing to remember is that when it happens is that I’m not… me. I’m something that can survive this place.”

“That makes sense,” Maggie said, nodding. “I’m assuming you can’t turn it on or off when you want?”

“Sometimes yes, sometimes no,” Alex said. “Depends on my stress. On isn’t a problem, but off definitely can be.”

“I’ve heard of certain rare types of PTSD that mimic what you’re talking about, going berserk. It’s usually seen in combat veterans, not FBI agents though,” Maggie said thoughtfully.

“Pretty science-y for a detective, but yes, that seems a reasonable diagnosis given the circumstances,” Alex said as she cocked her head to the side.

“I was in the Science division of the NCPD,” Maggie said. 

“I see,” Alex said with a nod.

“Was there something that triggered it? At first, I mean,” Maggie asked gently.

“It started the night after my first fight. I had a cellmate before you, you know,” Alex said.

“What happened to them?” Maggie asked.

“I killed him. He was totally off his rocker, and that should mean a lot coming from me. He had this awful growling laugh he did at everything, even in his sleep sometimes. and after my first kill in the arena, he felt like he had to prove his dominance over me since I was suddenly a threat,” Alex said. “I was still in shock at myself for what I’d done in the arena, who I was becoming, and then suddenly my cellmate was attacking me, and something inside of me snapped. So I killed him.”

“It was self-defense,” Maggie said softly.

“Maybe,” Alex said with a shrug. Maggie briefly considered refuting it before she changed tact. 

“So it all comes from one bad night?” Maggie asked.

“There was stuff before that. A lot of stuff,” Alex said the words came tumbling out of her, unable to stop them even if she wanted to and do the smart thing and shut up. “I saw my entire team, my friends, get killed because I messed up. I couldn’t have stopped it, not without knowledge I didn’t have, but it happened because of me. I’m here because the family caring for me sold me to Roulette to keep their farm. This isn’t the first time I’ve killed, I think I’ve always had this darkness inside me, and now, and now I can just let it out and I never have to let it stop because I have to survive, for Kara…”

Alex trailed off she felt something hot and wet slide down her face, and she realized she was crying as Maggie gently pulled her into a hug.

“Hey, you’re a survivor. Don’t beat yourself up for surviving,” Maggie said softly. “I’ve been down that road, a lot. It doesn’t help.”

“You’ve had to shoot a suspect?” Alex guessed as she pulled back slightly to face Maggie.

“No. I’ve never killed anyone,” Maggie said softly, closing her eyes as she tried to push past the lump in her throat. “But I did get kicked out of my parent’s house when I was 14 for being gay. I did a lot of self destructive stuff after that. But I did it to survive. And now they don’t get a say in my life anymore. But I get beating yourself up.”

Alex reflexively reached out a hand to Maggie’s shoulder, the touch more lingering than Maggie would have expected, and when she looked into Alex’s eyes she saw both a sad warmth and cold steel.

“They should never have done that to you,” Alex said, her voice a mixture of anger and disgust. “That’s not how anyone should ever treat you. You’re a good person, Maggie Sawyer. A lot better of a person than me.”

“You’re the reason I’m still here, Alex. You haven’t let this place break you. You’re still trying to save people,” Maggie said.

“I don’t have a very good track record of that,” Alex said as she wiped her tears with the back of her free hand as she kept her hand against Maggie’s shoulder.

“Yeah you do. It’s gets harder to reach out and try with every person you lose. And you’ve lost a lot, Danvers, I can see it. But the fact that you keep trying? That’s the strongest track record you can have in my book,” Maggie said with a smile before she casually flicked her eyes at Alex’s hand while she held Alex’s gaze. “And just to be clear, you’re sure you’re not gay?”

“Oh, I’m, Uh,” Alex said, pulling her hand like it had been burned as she turned away. “Sorry.”

“No need to apologize, Danvers,” Maggie said with a grin. “I’m single.”

“Oh, that’s um, not, really what, it’s,” Alex said before she closed her eyes and started again. “I don’t want to lead you on or anything. I’m… I’m not gay.”

“You’d be surprised how many lesbians I know have tried to convince themselves of that,” Maggie said. Alex’s impossibly large eyes stared back at hers, clouded by fear and doubt.

“Just food for thought,” Maggie said gently, defusing some of the tension as Alex rotated her body away from Maggie and sat against the wall next to Maggie, fidgeting uncomfortably. 

“Well, it’s certainly something to think about,” Alex mumbled.

“So, what’s up with these blue lights?” Maggie asked, changing the subject before she accidently killed her cellmate by embarrassment. 

“Weak simulated blue sunlight,” Alex said. “It supercharges human cells. It’s part of how the fighters can get the shit kicked out them every few days and be ok for the next fight. It boosts healing rates to insanely high levels in almost all species, but they make sure that they don’t accidently dump too much energy in and super charge any aliens into an army of super people. It’s not a mistake that we’re on a planet with a red sun. No species are superpowered on this planet, so no one’s tempted to be a superhero.”

“I see. Keeps the fights fair, makes it hard to escape,” Maggie said.

“Exactly,” Alex said before she nodded her head at Maggie’s wound. “That gash on you head is going to leave a scar, though. Side effect of human super healing. We’re not as built for it as a species like Kryptonians are, so we get excess scar tissue.”

“Is that why you have so many on your back?” Maggie asked quietly.

“Partially. Mostly it’s because I failed my trial fight by refusing to fight. The guards pulled out whips for mine, because I was too good at dodging. It’s why my first real fight was assigned to be a lopsided one,” Alex said. 

“Jesus,” Maggie said. “I’m sorry. When you gave me the warning about that earlier I just thought you had seen things, not that… thank you.”

Alex shrugged.

“I survived. I learned. Could have been worse,” Alex said. 

“Well, you’re wrong about one thing, Danvers,” Maggie said with a small smile.

“What’s that?” Alex asked.

“You said they made sure there were no super heroes down here. You’re a super hero to me,” Maggie said. 

“I’m no hero,” Alex said as she looked away. 

“Let me guess: rule number 5: no heroes?” Maggie asked with an arched eyebrow and Alex turned back to her with a small smile.

“Exactly. I might make a cynic of you yet,” Alex said.

“Dream on, Danvers,” Maggie said with a smile. “Gurb’s right on one thing: always bet on Alex Danvers.”

“Gurb’s full of shit,” Alex said, turning around. “Help me unwrap this cloth? Not all of us got to cold cock high schoolers and my ribs are killing me.”

Maggie laughed as she started carefully unwrapping the woman in front of her, definitely not making mental picture of Alex’s physique, but still taking note of how Alex shivered where ever her fingers touched her unabraded skin. 

As she went to sleep, Maggie definitely wasn’t obsessing over Alex’s well-muscled shoulders. She had already had Alex straddle her naked, it would make her an especially useless lesbian to obsess over Alex’s extremely well-defined trapezius muscles at this point. Besides, Alex was clearly in denial, and while normally Maggie didn’t have a problem helping people realize that aspect of themselves, this wasn’t exactly a normal situation and Alex was clearly far from a stable place. Maggie was still an officer of the law, no matter what Alex might say, and she was going to be professional about this arrangement.

She definitely wasn’t thinking of Alex’s strong arms as she went to sleep. 

Her subsequent dream about Alex was purely coincidental.


	4. Force

The following morning, Gurb woke Maggie early, announcing his presence by banging on the cage door. 

“It’s time, Vulpes,” Gurb said, as he stepped back from the open cage door. Maggie noticed he was flanked by two other guards, all armed with the shock sticks from the arena. 

“She comes too,” Alex said, nodding her head towards a groggy Maggie. Gurb turned his head in surprise to the bleary-eyed detective.

“Surprised to see you in one piece. Vulpes must have really taken a liking to you,” Gurb said before he shrugged. “Whatever, she can come. Who says I can’t do nice things for my girl?”

“Grab your fighting clothes, you can get dressed once we’re there,” Alex said, ignoring Gurb as she crawled out of the cage and stood, followed shortly by a very confused Maggie, who noticed that there were several other guards who stood warily behind Gurb with what looked like futuristic rifles.

After a short walk down several winding hallways, the group came to a non-descript door.

“Hour and a half,” Gurb said as he opened the metal door with a creak. Maggie followed Alex into the room, and an ominous clang sounded as she heard the door lock behind her. Turning to Alex, Maggie gave Alex a questioning look as to why they both found themselves in a concrete room with the same type of sandy dirt floor as the arena.

“What, you didn’t think they kept us in cages the whole time, did you?” Alex asked as Maggie turned around to quickly slip on her underclothes and take off the tunic.

“It kind of seemed like it,” Maggie mumbled.

“Nope. Roulette likes money, and money likes excitement,” Alex said as she bounced on the balls of her feet as Maggie turned back towards her. “And excitement needs training.”

“You train here? Against who?” Maggie asked as she looked around the small, barren room.

“Before you? Sandbags, mostly,” Alex said. “I don’t play nicely with others.”

“I’m shocked,” Maggie said.

“Another week of training isn’t going to do me a whole lot of good at this point, though,” Alex said as she turned to face Maggie. “You, on the other hand?”

“All right, Danvers, I get the whole federal agent ‘I’m a badass’ thing, but they do still teach cops self-defense,” Maggie said in annoyance as she slipped into a fighting stance.

“Mmm,” Alex said with a nod. Almost faster than Maggie could blink, Alex had shoved her off balance with her shoulder and sweeping her legs out from under her. Maggie was only throwing her hands up to block Alex as she hit the ground. After a confused several seconds on the ground, Maggie performed a quick monkey roll, Maggie sprang to her feet in a balanced fighting stance.

“Not bad reaction time. Not good enough, but good instincts,” Alex said as she almost casually circled around Maggie, who constantly turned to keep Alex in front of her.

“Not entirely sure what a sucker punch proves,” Maggie asked. 

“It proves that you need to learn there aren’t sucker punches down here, only suckers,” Alex said as she flicked her eyes down to Maggie’s hips.

“Your stance is good, but your footwork is sloppy. You’re fighting in sand, not a boxing ring. You’re going to slide around a lot,” Alex said. Maggie bristled at the casual assessment, but kept Alex in front of her.

“Good. Someone dumber would have taken that bait and attacked,” Alex said. 

“I know a big mouth when I see one,” Maggie said with a smirk.

“Noted,” Alex said, flicking her eyes down again. As Maggie followed her gaze, she didn’t catch the jab aimed at her face until almost too late, jerking her head back in an instant. 

Alex kept up a rain of blows aimed at Maggie, putting her firmly on the defensive as she blocked and weaved until she felt herself pinned against the wall, where Alex managed to catch both of her hands and pin them to the side. Alex was suddenly an inch from Maggie’s face, both breathing deeply from the exertion as they stared into each other’s eyes for half a second too long before Alex let go and walked away quickly. 

“Initiative,” Alex said suddenly as she walked away. “Don’t give it up. Don’t follow my eyes, follow my hips.”

“Right,” Maggie said, eyebrows knitting together for a moment before she shook her head and dropped back down into her fighting stance.

“Again,” Alex said as she jabbed at Maggie again. 

For two hours, Maggie experienced the most intense workout of her life. She lost count of how many times her ass ended up on the ground, and her body began to ache only halfway through. But towards the end, Alex started to actually give her praise for some of the things she was doing. She noted a good kick here, a solid improvisation there, good footwork there. 

By the time Gurb showed up to escort them back to their cages, Alex was actually smiling at her. 

“Told you you’d see another side to her,” Gurb said, and Maggie gave him a perplexed look.

“She’s baring her fangs at you. I’d be surprised if you last the night,” Gurb said as he slammed their cage door shut before sauntering away.

“Gurb isn’t very smart, is he?” Maggie asked.

“His species doesn’t have lips, so they have no concept of smiling,” Alex said with a deadpan. “Also, dumber than a bag of hammers.”

“Thought so,” Maggie said with a smile. 

Despite the hard cage floor pushing on her newly acquired bruises, she slept well that night.

The next few days settled into an almost comfortable routine with Alex. Change, practice, eat, shower, and then talk. About life before, about news Maggie had about Earth, about a million science things. Maggie was coming to understand that Alex was a force to be reckoned with at pretty much everything she set out to do. How Alex Danvers was strong enough to thrive anywhere, even in the hellhole she currently found herself in. 

Alex might be afraid of what she wanted, but she was strong, so incredibly strong and Maggie couldn’t help but be pulled into her orbit. Maggie just needed to wait for the right time to guide Alex through her increasingly obvious attraction gently. She would have preferred to let her have time to be aware of herself and breath through it until it became second nature, but Maggie didn’t know how much time either of them had left and she needed to let Alex know that she didn’t have to cut out a part of herself she was clearly out of touch with. 

Then there were the touches, Alex reaching out to Maggie in the most literal sense when she lacked the words to say anything. They weren’t intrusive, just pushing the bounds of friendship, and Maggie was coming to treasure them. A touch on her arm to get her attention, a nuzzle in her sleep, a reassuring squeeze of her shoulder with a helping hand up after she took a tumble in training. It was like Maggie could feel Alex’s softness trying to reach out to her through the woman’s hard shell.

So when Maggie’s eye finally started to adjust to how fast Alex moved, when she finally felt like she caught up to her, Maggie didn’t hesitate. 

Slipping one of Alex’s punches, Maggie threw her own into Alex’s midsection, forcing her a half step back. Maggie saw the counterpunch coming, and did the only thing she could think of by launching herself at Alex and grabbing her into a bear hug. However, she overshot her momentum, sending them tumbling to the ground. Maggie ended up on top of Alex, arms to either side of Alex’s head as they were both panting heavily. 

Maggie saw Alex’s eyes flick down to her lips with widely blown pupils. As the moment stretched out with only their quiet panting to fill the silence, Maggie held Alex in her gaze and saw a deep-rooted fear. There was something primal that struck Maggie to her very core as she gazed into Alex’s eyes, something vulnerable in this indomitable woman. 

“Thought anymore about… you know?” Maggie asked, surprised at how husky her own voice sounded.

Alex didn’t answer, but she didn’t look away either.

“Alex, if you want, I’m going to kiss you now,” Maggie said softly, and waited several seconds for Alex to pull away, but all Alex did was shift her gaze to Maggie’s lips.

Taking that as a sign of approval, Maggie snaked a hand to palm Alex’s cheek, Maggie guided the taller woman into a gentle kiss.

Maggie felt Alex’s soft lips on her own as she applied the lightest pressure she could, unsure of how to progress without any sign from Alex. Alex quickly dissolved any lingering hesitance when she started kissing Maggie back almost as soon as their lips met. Alex was remarkably tender with her lips, nearly as exploratory in her affections as Maggie was as she probed the smaller woman’s lips with her own.

Pulling back, Maggie saw a new side to Alex underneath her, a softer side than she had ever thought possible. Alex made slight breathy protest at the loss of Maggie’s lips, and Maggie almost moved to kiss her again but heroically managed to hold herself back. 

“Good, Danvers?” Maggie asked in a low voice. Underneath her, Alex seemed to shake her head slightly as she seemed to come out from a spell as her eyebrows crinkled.

“I’m not, I’m, I’m sorry,” Alex said as she rolled out from under Maggie, dusting herself off as she walked and banged on the door twice. “I want to go back to my cell.”

“Alex,” Maggie said plaintively as Alex refused to look her in the eye. As Maggie reached out to gently touch her arm, Maggie realized she was shaking.

“It’s fine,” Alex said shortly. “It’s fine, alright?”

“Clearly it’s not, but it’s fine if you need some space right now,” Maggie said. 

Alex simply nodded as she crossed her arms before the guards took them back to their cell.

It took until after their dinner of unpleasant nutrient paste for Alex to speak to her.

“I’m sorry,” Alex said from her corner so quietly that Maggie barely heard her.

“What?” Maggie asked from where she sat against the wall.

“I’m sorry. That was childish. Not talking for the past few hours, like maybe if I didn’t say anything this thing between us would just stop existing. I just kind of shut down when I’m overwhelmed,” Alex said as her eyes briefly flitted to Maggie’s before looking away again.

“Sorry if I overwhelmed you,” Maggie said, and Alex gave a watery laugh and waved her hand. 

“You have nothing to apologize for. It’s just this place,” Alex said as she pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’ve been keeping myself going for so long by staying alive for Kara. And maybe these past couple of days have felt bearable, and maybe even enjoyable. And then today was definitely enjoyable, but bad things happen when I do things for myself, and I can’t drag someone else down with me again.”

“Alex, you have been doing the exact opposite of that ever since I’ve been here,” Maggie said.

“You don’t understand. I almost got my sister taken away when I was 14 because of a joyride. I floundered so badly through college I needed my future boss to bail me out of jail because I drank and drove. I drove my best friend,” Alex said, cutting herself off midsentence as she cocked her head to side, showing Maggie the distraught lines on her face as she exhaled a shuddering breath with closed eyes. “I drove my best friend away because I wanted more from her.”

“What happened?” Maggie asked.

“We were 17, and I had been using her house to get away from my mother and my mountain of responsibilities. I had been sleeping in her bed, even. And then one day I took something she said and I assumed it meant I should kiss her and then we stopped being friends,” Alex said with rough half laugh. “I had forgotten about that until now.”

“Alex, that wasn’t selfish of you,” Maggie said. “That sounds like her problem, not yours.”

“I guess,” Alex said with a shrug, and Maggie rolled her eyes and crawled over to sit down next to Alex.

“Doing things for yourself isn’t selfish,” Maggie said.

“Yeah. You’re right,” Alex said as she leaned her head against Maggie’s shoulder in a conciliatory gesture. “I just don’t want you to be hurt. And here? It’s not exactly the best place to start taking chances.”

“I think this is a great place to start taking chances,” Maggie said. “Even if you screw up, there’s a good chance you won’t have to live with your mistake.”

Alex laughed at the gallows humor. 

“I see how it is, Sawyer,” Alex said with a smile. “Anyone ever tell you’re too smooth for your own good?”

“It’s come up,” Maggie said with a laugh. “So if I put my arm around your shoulders, you’re not going to have another gay panic?”

Alex laughed again as she rolled her eyes and grabbed Maggie’s wrist to slip the smaller woman’s arm around her shoulders.

“I’d just like to point out that I did not have a gay panic, I had an emotional intimacy panic,” Alex said. “The gay thing is… new. But definitely one the least weird things in my life right now. Obviously.”

“Pretty sure those panics are pretty much the same thing, Danvers, but we’ll let it slide this time,” Maggie said as she squeezed Alex next to her. Alex smiled at her before she closed her eyes.

“Promise me you’ll be safe tomorrow,” Alex said.

“Me? I’m not the one who fights in my underwear by choice, Danvers,” Maggie said.

“It’s not like they ever offered me armor. Or a weapon,” Alex said ruefully. “Probably because Roulette knows who I am.”

“You’ve crossed paths with her before?” Maggie asked.

“No, but I know she has contacts in the government. She must, with an operation this big,” Alex said.

“So she knows you’re DEO then,” Maggie asked. Alex raised her eyebrow.

“Not sure what that is,” Alex stated automatically.

“Look, I think it’s pretty clear you’re not FBI, so just level with me Danvers,” Maggie said. Alex seemed to consider it for a second.

“How do you know what the DEO is?” Alex asked. 

“I had a lot of alien friends. I got to hear about the boogey men eventually,” Maggie said. 

“Well, I guess I’m not surprised it got out eventually,” Alex said, making a sweeping motion with her arm. “We missed all this for years.”

“Don’t feel bad. The feds are always the last to know everything,” Maggie said with a shit-eating grin before her gaze turned penetrating again. “So, what was it like being one of the bad guys from ET?”

“The DEO isn’t like that anymore. My boss changed that. My tall, green boss,” Alex said.

“I see,” Maggie said. “So that story you told before, how much of it was true?”

“All of it. I just switched some acronyms,” Alex said. Maggie nodded. 

“Thanks for telling me the truth, Danvers,” Maggie said.

“Yeah, well, breaking federal law doesn’t seem nearly the favor out here that it does back on earth,” Alex said with a small smile. They shared a companionable silence for several minutes as they digested the new information about each other.

“What do you think they have planned for us tomorrow?” Maggie asked. Alex shrugged. 

“Who knows? They only announce the fights ahead of time to us if they have a particular plan or their trying to make a statement. Part of the appeal to the crowd is that we go into every fight blind,” Alex said.

“I see,” Maggie said. “I still don’t want to kill anyone. Not for her.”

“Well, you’re not going to get away with a knockout this time,” Alex said. “You’re going to have to try for a maiming.”

“How do I do that?” Maggie asked. “I mean, don’t these healing lamps mean that anything is recoverable short of death?”

“Not everything. Most species can’t regenerate limbs, even when they’re under whatever simulated sunlight helps them the most. Immobilization, like paralyzing part of their body would also work,” Alex said. “I’d go for a limb though. Easier and less likely to be fatal.”

“Jesus,” Maggie said. “So my options are to give someone a lifelong injury or kill them?”

“Think of it like surgery,” Alex said with a shrug. “You’re reducing harm as much as you can.”

“Is that how you think of it?” Maggie asked quietly. “I don’t mean to sound like I’m accusing you, but I’m curious.”

“No. the people I fight deserve to die,” Alex said. “You saw Occisor. He enjoyed his job. That, and I’m sticking around for vengeance.”

“What do you mean?” Maggie asked in a low voice. Glancing at the hallway, Alex moved slightly to the side and removed a small sheet of metal Maggie had assumed was simply part of the floor. Underneath was a neatly folded piece of cloth, a sharp piece of metal with a cloth handle that appeared to be a shiv, and a small needle bound to a small piece of wood with a thread. Alex quickly slid the cover back over the stash.

“I’ve been mapping this place, memorizing the guard schedules. I tried to break out my first night here, but I got lost on my way out. It’s why they stripped you before they threw you in here. They’re a little paranoid about hidden pockets after me,” Alex said.

“What stopped you?” Maggie asked.

“I was navigating by compass, because I figured if I went in a straight line eventually I could get to the outside, maybe hide out in the landscape until I could steal or sneak aboard a ship,” Alex said. “But I was going around in a circle. My compass wasn’t showing me the natural magnetic poles of the planet. It was showing me the magnetic field of the gate that brought you here.”

“So you want to get out of here and come back with the DEO,” Maggie said, nodding. 

“I’m going to burn this place to the ground,” Alex said, and Maggie was struck by the intensity. “But to do that, I have to make it back alive. And to stay alive down here, you have to be willing to kill.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be willing to do that. Not for her,” Maggie said, and Alex held her in a frighteningly tragic gaze.

“I hope it’s never a choice you have to make, and I can’t make it for you. But please come back tomorrow. I don’t know what I would do here without you,” Alex said. 

“Hey, I’ll make it back,” Maggie said. “I’ve had a lot of help from a very good trainer.”

Alex gave a quiet laugh as she snuggled into Maggie’s side.

“Promise me something?” Alex asked.

“What?” Maggie asked.

“If I don’t make it, for whatever reason-” Alex started.

“You’re going to make it out, Danvers,” Maggie said quietly.

“But if I don’t, call Kara and tell her about this place. She’ll know what to do,” Alex said. 

“I’m not going to have to do that,” Maggie said, pressing a kiss to the top of Alex’s head. “Now didn’t you have some rule or another about needing sleep down here?”

Alex laughed again before she straightened up and looked Maggie in the eye. 

“You trying to get me in bed already, Sawyer? We haven’t even had our first date yet,” Alex said.

“Hey, I’ve already slept with you, I’m just trying to make an honest woman out of you,” Maggie said with a smirk as Alex grinned right back.

“Guess we’re beyond protocol already then,” Alex said. “Might as well jump in bed again.”

“You’re the little spoon,” Maggie stated.

“I see,” Alex said with a smile as she lay down on the floor and draped the blanket over herself. “So I’m assuming this isn’t determined by height then.”

“One, shut up, and two, you have so much to learn,” Maggie said with an eye roll as Maggie slipped an arm around Alex’s waist and moved to cuddle up behind her.

“Well, you’ll have plenty of time to teach me,” Alex said. “Not like I have much else on my social calendar.” 

“Well, I’ll try,” Maggie said, even as her grin turned somber. “See you tomorrow evening?”

“See you tomorrow evening,” Alex said firmly as she held Maggie’s hand in hers. They exchanged a quick kiss, less heated than before, but far more reassuring as they poured what they couldn’t say into the all too brief contact.

Maggie drifted off to sleep holding the strange woman in her arms whom she was quickly becoming enchanted by. The gentle embrace helped her hold off the fear she knew the following morning would bring.


	5. Welcome to the Jungle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note: this chapter did not start out to be as violent as I happened to write it, and this includes a threat of sexual assault that is not carried out. So, a heads up on that, even though I tried to make it as easy to read around as possible, it is still there. Anyway, Merry Christmas on this very late chapter

The next morning, Maggie’s eyes flicked open before the Klaxon of the fight day sounded. Alex hadn’t shifted very much during the night, and Maggie could still feel the lithe woman’s warm, relaxed body inhaling steadily underneath her lightly splayed hand. Maggie lightly nuzzled the back of Alex’s neck, letting herself breath in the smell of Alex’s skin. She smelled vaguely like the disinfectant foam that came from the ceiling, but there was another smell underneath it that was entirely Alex that Maggie couldn’t get enough of. It was light but had an almost musky overtone, somehow familiar despite the short time they had been together. Maggie let the smell burn into her memory in the still of the morning.

Making a small noise under her, Alex awoke and shifted slightly. 

“Good morning,” Maggie whispered before she pressed a brief kiss to the back of Alex’s head.

“Good morning,” Alex said with a sleepy smile on her face. Maggie was enraptured as she sensed she was seeing yet another side to Alex, something unguarded and soft she wanted to keep with her. Sliding her hand to intertwine with the taller woman’s, Maggie lowered her mouth to Alex’s and kissed a gentle line to the red head’s lips. As she deepened the kiss, Alex rolled underneath her and Maggie climbed on of top on autopilot as she held Alex’s hand through the kiss. Maggie froze when she felt the woman under her stiffen.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to push,” Maggie said as she broke the kiss and searched Alex’s eyes for signs of fear.

“I didn’t say I minded,” Alex said almost shyly as she looked over her nose at Maggie. “It’s that you just make me feel a way I haven’t ever felt before. And I don’t mean like… lesbian feelings.”

“What do you mean?” Maggie said, smiling at both Alex’s obvious struggle to use the word lesbian to describe herself and the fact that she had let herself do so anyway.

“This place keeps teaching me things about myself I didn’t want to know. But deep down, I’m not really surprised by the decisions I’ve made. I’d killed before. I’ve done morally questionable things to protect the people I love, and I’m ok with that. But I didn’t think I was really built for this,” Alex said softly as she looked into Maggie’s eyes. “I never really had a connection or even wanted a romantic connection with a guy. I didn’t think I was really built for intimacy. But you’re really making me rethink that.”

“Alex…” Maggie said as she found herself at a loss for words that could match the level of emotional vulnerability Alex had just given to her. The only thing she could think to do was to place a gentle hand on Alex’s cheek and a tender a kiss on Alex’s lips.

Unfortunately, that was the moment the fight klaxon decided to shatter the early morning stillness. 

Breaking the kiss, Maggie let her thumb trace invisible patterns on Alex’s cheek as she stared down at the beautiful woman she was laying on top of.

“We should probably get ready,” Maggie said with a small smile.

“Probably,” Alex said with a tight smile back.

“Hey. We’re going to finish this conversation tonight, alright?” Maggie said resolutely.

“Yeah. We will,” Alex said with a smile that just barely reached her eyes this time. “We have to.”

Maggie gave Alex a smile back and the two quickly got ready in companionable silence. To their surprise, Gurb came without a portable cage for Alex and Maggie, but rather motioned for both Alex and Maggie to get out into the hallway. 

“Come on, boss wants all the female fighters lined up for inspection to meet a VIP,” Gurb said. “That means you stay in line, Vulpes. Least, until the arena. Remember who’s got the shock sticks.”

Alex simply glowered at him as Maggie and her crawled out of the cramped space of the cage. As they were herded together with the dozens of other women in their block of every imaginable shape, size and color, they came to an odd room where dozens of other women were already lined up. Falling into line, the gathered fighters seemed to hold their collective breath as a door opened with a slight whoosh of air as Roulette and a brown-haired man Maggie felt like she recognized walked through the door. 

“So, do you see what you’re looking for?” Roulette asked the man as he looked casually over the assembled women, before he briefly locked eyes with a glowering Alex.

“I think we might be able to come to a deal,” Max said with a quick smile that a straighter woman than Maggie might describe as charming rather than reptilian. 

“Who’s he?” Maggie hissed in Alex’s ear upon seeing the redhead’s tight frown at the man.

“No one important,” Alex said dismissively as the man turned to walk out.

“Don’t want to look at any other merchandise?” Roulette offered coyly as she followed the man.

“No, I think I know which one I want as my freebie. I studied the files on the way here, I’m ready to finalize,” the man said with a tighter smile than before as he rushed out the door. 

“I’m sure. Well, whoever you’ve chosen, I can take her out of the fights if you’d like,” Roulette said as she followed the man out the door at a slower pace.

“Oh, I think she enjoys it. Let her have one more,” the man’s voice came distantly before the door closed behind Roulette.

“What was that about?” Maggie whispered to Alex.

“Nothing good,” Alex said with a slight frown. “Keep on your toes. Something’s up.”

“All right, get in the cage, Vulpes,” Gurb said as he motioned her to get into the cage he had wheeled up to the pair while the rest of the assembled fighters were herded back towards the doors to the arena.

“See you tonight, Danvers,” Maggie said as Gurb wheeled Alex away.

“You too,” Alex said as she was wheeled out of sight of Maggie. The former detective blew out a breath of frustration at the new variable that Alex clearly had a read on that she was still completely in the dark about. 

As they entered the arena, Maggie felt a sense of dread build in the pit of her stomach. She assumed she would be forced to fight, but the fact that the guards were lining the fighters up in the arena and not behind the doors that she had seen Alex and the other fighters come out from was an unexpected portent.

As the fighters shuffled into the arena, the guards stopped the fighters behind Maggie from entering the arena, leaving a group of a ten to continue onwards. A second guard with a blue paintbrush marked each of the fighters as they passed in the same way that they had been on their first day. Maggie spotted a pile of what looked like weapons and armor in the middle of the field, but her thoughts were halted by guards who began spreading the fighters out onto chalk exes on the ground in a semi-circle around the weapons. Preparing herself for a hunger games style dash for the nearest weapon to defend herself, Maggie’s thoughts were interrupted by Roulette. 

“Now that we’ve introduced our generous sponsor of todays games, let’s start off with an event I know you all love: a classic lady’s rumble!” Roulette said over the blaring PA system, the crowd bursting into cheers at the pronouncement. “But this isn’t just any free for all: we’ve decided to let some wildlife in as well for our first ever Fierce Female Fracas!”

The crowd roared at the pronouncement as guards rolled several cages onto the field, and Maggie felt her stomach drop as she recognized one of the savage creatures contained in the cages as Alex, clearly fully into her persona as Vulpes and nearly frothing at the mouth in anger. 

“You know the rumble rules: ten fighters in blue go into the ring, two leave. Our lovely contestants for the day are the pretty pugilist Patrona of Attagastes, the aggressive Arquette of Geos 7 and her sister the alert Aquila, your newcomer, seedy savage Sawyer, the tyrannical twins of Arbolast 3, the resourceful Regina of Earth, the hungry rookie Freya of Argos, the canny veteran Burgzz, and your recent tournament victor, the hard hitting, ferocious fighting machine: the one, the only, Ferrum!” Roulette said as the crowd cheered with varying levels of enthusiasm for their favorite fighters before ending on a roar. Maggie couldn’t help but notice her name actually garnered some boos, and had to remind herself that everyone in this place had a messed-up set of priorities. 

Looking to Alex, Maggie cast a worried glance as the woman she had been getting close to locked eyes with her. Not giving her long to dwell on the situation she found herself in, Roulette began to speak over the crowd’s approval for Ferrum, clearly the most popular of the fighters present.

“Now, let the fight: Begin!” Roulette called. 

Immediately, most of the fighters ran for the center to grab a weapon. Having seen the hunger games, Maggie ran around the edge of the circle, aiming to try to sneak behind one of the fighters and grab something on the edges while she avoided what she assumed would be the bloody melee in the middle of the field. 

As Maggie picked up a simple rock from the ground, a blood curdling scream filled the air. The crowd roared in approval as Maggie looked up to see an alien woman desperately clutching at the sword that was impaling her. The Massive fighter holding the sword shifted positions, lifting the unfortunate victim off her feet as her shrieking hit a new frenzied level, only to be drowned out by the raucously approving crowd moments later. 

Blanching at the carnage, Maggie had to turn away for fear that the contents of her stomach would violently expel themselves across the sand.

“Another kill for the Ferocious Ferrum!” Roulette said with barely suppressed glee as Maggie refocused her vision on the melee in front of her. Most of the other fighters had quickly grabbed a weapon and were warily backing away from one another, although several were involved in fights over equipment. Maggie was the farthest away from them, but found herself armed with only a rock against experienced fighters wielding swords, staffs, axes and other medieval looking weapons. 

As the fighters slowly broke up into singles and a few pairs, Maggie heard the sound of metal on metal behind her, even though she almost missed the grinding sound over the roar of the crowd and the fight. Whirling, she saw the cage doors fly open and the occupants hurl themselves into the arena.

Aside from Alex, there were no bipedal creatures among the group, the rest looking like strange breeds of alien dogs. The one nearest to Maggie took off running at her, growling and snarling as it tore over the sand. Without time to think, Maggie tried to throw her rock straight at the creature. The dog alien easily dodged to the side, barely breaking stride to avoid the well-aimed missile before launching itself at Maggie. 

Without any other options, Maggie rolled out of the way, the claws of the beast meeting only air as it sailed over her. Shifting quickly, she managed to land a vicious side kick to it’s ribs before she tried to put some distance between them, but it seemed to only make the alien angrier.

Backing away before the now slowly approaching beast, Maggie searched desperately for some way to escape the mass of muscles and shaggy fur coming her way. Suddenly, the beast lunged again, and Maggie wasn’t fast enough to duck to the side a second time. Maggie felt the hot sting of claws rip into her shoulders as the beast tackled her to the ground. Desperately, Maggie threw several crosses at the snarling snout of the creature to seemingly little effect. It’s snapping sending drool everywhere, Maggie only barely managed to hold the beast’s vicious attacks away from her face with her now aching arms and shoulders.

Just as Maggie could sense she was losing the strength to keep the massive teeth in the creature’s maw from severing the arteries in her neck, the weight was suddenly removed from her in a flash. Turning her head in confusion, Maggie saw Alex and the creature rolling on the ground, Alex somehow holding her own against the snapping beast.

Picking herself up, Maggie ran towards the pair, but had to pull up short when she only barely dodged a sword blow that had come whistling at her head. Turning to her assailant, Maggie saw the hulking form of Ferrum following up her first attack with a quick stab aimed at her center. Alex’s training paid off as Maggie managed to twist her body out of the way of the lightning fast attack and spring away with enough breathing room to try to find an escape.

The grey skinned alien didn’t seem phased by Maggie’s elusiveness, settling into a steady probing of Maggie’s weaknesses as she took almost languid swipes at her now that she had lost the element of surprise. Despite the apparent lack of effort put forward by the other fighter, her swings still came uncomfortably close to Maggie. Despite her inability to land a blow, Ferrum was steadily pushing her backwards towards an unknown destination.

Suddenly, a second fighter interrupted their private engagement, causing Ferrum to defend herself from a rapid serious of spear thrusts with several difficult parries. Maggie saw her opportunity to escape, running away from the rapidly dueling aliens. Turning to look for Alex to try to help her with the alien dog she had been fighting moments earlier, Maggie couldn’t find the pair in the mass of confusing bodies. 

Running along the perimeter of the main engagement, Maggie managed to pick up a broken staff of what used to be a pole arm of some kind before the head had been sheared off. Despite it essentially being a pointy stick, Maggie figured it would be better than nothing. Hearing a growl behind her, Maggie turned to see three more of the alien dog creatures stalking towards her. 

Holding her staff in front of her, Maggie began backing away from the creatures before she caught two other figures out of the corner of her eye that were cutting off her retreat. Catching a full glance, she saw that it was the fighters that must be called the twins. 

“Hey, if we work together, we can each take one of whatever those things are,” Maggie called to the pair of lanky alien women warily as they approached her. 

“Or we could kill you and let the Rithnu feast on your corpse,” One of the extraordinarily tall twins said as she brandished an axe. Gritting her teeth, Maggie realized she was between a rock and a hard place, and she was going to have to do something crazy to get out of this situation. Thinking back to what Alex would do in this situation, a crazy idea popped into her head. She grimaced internally at the low chance of success, but considering she was out of sane options, it would have to do.

Letting out a shriek, Maggie whipped around and threw her staff like a javelin at the head of one of the twins. Her throw was easily dodged, but it allowed Maggie to slide her small frame between the legs of her target. Popping up from her slide just like she was playing one of her high school soft ball games, Maggie fell into a defensive stance behind the twins as the Rithnu pack approached them. 

“Leave her!” One of them called as they both refocused their attentions on the savage beasts once they realized what Maggie had done, as their full attentions were taken up entirely by the attacking animals.

Turning back to survey the now well bloodied sand, Maggie took in the horrific sights and sounds as she looked out among the carnage for Alex. At least four fighters were down and unmoving in various states of disfiguration, with one of the remaining two alien beasts that weren’t attacking the twins tearing at a lifeless body. Pulling a discarded throwing knife from the back of one of the fighters, Maggie held it up for half a moment, remembering the time she had had M’Gann teach her how to throw a knife to impress a girl half a life time ago. She hoped she remembered how now that the stakes were higher. 

As she returned to scanning the field, Maggie could only identify Ferrum as she fought a ferocious contest with two other fighters.

Finally spotting Alex amidst the surreal fog of her perception that the arena seemed to be shrouded in, Maggie saw the red-haired woman still locked in combat with the Alien creature that had attempted to kill her at the beginning of the fight. Both contestants standing on their feet now, and Alex had clearly been having the better of the fight given that she was pressing a series of attacks relentlessly forward with slashes of a large knife. The blood in the alien creature’s fur showed that it didn’t have long for this world, if Alex’s past fights were anything to go by.

Maggie ran towards the woman, giving the rest of the fighters a wide berth as she rushed to her aid. As soon as she the creature glanced Maggie, it almost immediately turned tail and ran, only turning back to offer a brief false charge before it took off running in earnest to lick its wounds.

Maggie turned to grin at Alex, despite the horror of the situation she actually felt a trill of genuine excitement at being reunited with the former DEO agent, even in the heat of battle. When she got close, however, Alex was already stalking towards the now tiring Ferrum, who was still locked in combat with one of the two fighters she had been before. The other sat screaming in the sand as she clutched the bloodied stump that had used to be her arm, looking down in numb confusion.

“Guess we’re sticking to business,” Maggie said as she followed after Alex at a trot. Just as Alex reached the battling pair, Maggie felt herself be lifted up and slammed down into the ground from the side. Barely getting her guard up to block a vicious blow to her head, Maggie managed to kick her attacker off of her before she rolled herself into a crouch.

“You killed my sister!” the fighter yelled, and Maggie recognized her as one of the twins underneath the blood and gore that obscured her face. Maggie didn’t have much time to think after that as the now unarmed woman recklessly attacked her with barely contained fury, raining blows in a constant stream at the shorter woman. Letting herself be driven slowly back, Maggie tried to mostly deflect the blows thrown her way despite the knife in her hand. 

Out of the corner of her eye, Maggie saw Alex entirely focused on Ferrum. However, the fighter who had been fighting the large grey alien had taken the opportunity to grab a javelin and aim it at Alex’s back. Maggie felt her gut clench as she saw that Alex was completely unaware of the danger to her.

Sliding quickly to the side, she let her charging adversary slip past her before she began to run towards the other fight like a woman possessed. Seconds into her mad dash, she realized she had no chance of making it in time. Feeling as if she was watching her body move of it’s own accord, Maggie grabbed the end of the throwing knife and flung it through the air in one fluid motion, focusing with laser precision on the other woman’s neck. Maggie watched the blade hurtle end over end cleanly, like she had seen a hundred times, before it struck cleanly through the other woman’s throat. 

She didn’t even have time to scream as she clawed desperately at the wound as she fell to her knees in surprise, red blood spilling over her blue skin as a sick gurgling somehow rose above the huge roar of the crowd.

Maggie felt her entire body jolt with electricity and go numb at the same time, like everything under her skin had turned to pure massless energy. She froze in place as she watched the woman she had just doomed struggle vainly against the four inches of metal embedded in her neck, her eyes wide in horror. 

Maggie was suddenly brought back to her senses as a bruising kick landed in her back and sent her staggering forward. Her neglected opponent landed several more savage blows before tackling Maggie to the ground. Her punishing attacks rained down on Maggie’s head and hands as she only barely managed to hold off the worst of them. She was forced to absorb the abuse she was since she was unable to dislodge the larger fighter from her torso, and she felt the anger behind every punch as flurries of combinations rained down from above her.

With the same abruptness that they had started with, the blows stopped, and Maggie stared incredulously as she saw the broken shaft Maggie had thrown away early run straight through the woman straddling her. Following the wooden shaft, she came face to face with a glaring Alex holding the other end. With a single punch, Alex knocked out the mortally wounded woman who slumped off of her and onto the ground. 

Getting shakily to her feet, Maggie saw that she and a clearly winded Ferrum were the only fighters left on the field, meaning the match was finally over. She turned her attention to the red headed woman who was now growling at the approaching guards with her back to Maggie, putting herself between them futilely. Something seemed to pop in Maggie’s ears that she hadn’t realized was there and she could suddenly hear the deafening roar of the crowd over the ringing in her ears again. 

“Vulpes, it’s alright, it’s ok, we won, we’re just going back to our cage now,” Maggie said shakily as she felt bile touch the back of her throat as she glanced the woman she had killed face down and unmoving mere feet away from her. Eventually, Roulette cut off Ferrum’s grandstanding and a cage was wheeled out to contain Alex once the guards finally managed to separate them and clear the sand for the next match.

As a shaken Maggie was guided back to her cell, she was surprised to see Alex’s cage being rolled towards the opposite exit in the arena. Hoping that she would see Alex soon, Maggie relaxed her battered and bloodied body gingerly against the wall of her cell as she mentally prepared to help Alex come down from her alter ego.

Across the compound, Alex felt her breathing steady as the red slowly faded from her eyes. Taking several deep breaths, she felt the unbridled aggression of Vulpes start to slip from around her chest as she tried to make sense of where she was. All the other times she had come down from the high of becoming Vulpes she had been in her cage, but this was clearly not her cramped living quarters. It looked like some kind of futuristic octagonal closet with gently shifting pastel light patterns on the walls. As the blood in her ears stopped rushing so loudly that it blocked out all other noise, Alex heard the soft tones of alien sounding music echo gently in the space. 

“Hello?” Alex called out hoarsely, her throat still raw from the noises she made as Vulpes. Without warning, one of the walls of the octagon slid open to reveal a room that looked similar to the Kryptonian home that Alex had seen in Kara’s mind when she had saved her sister from the black mercy. This room gave a completely different impression than the homey atmosphere her little sister had grown up, as this room seemed more set up to emphasize its own sleekness and wealth than an emphasis on comfort. 

As Alex looked around, her eyes narrowed as she picked out Roulette standing impatiently across the room from her.

“Now that you’ve finally calmed down, I expect you to be civil to our guest,” Roulette said as Roulette’s eyes narrowed into a threat. “Oh, and Alex? Thank you for all the money you’ve made me.”

Roulette’s face disappeared from the monitor, leaving Alex temporarily confused as she stood in the empty room. Behind her, Alex heard the hiss of pneumatic doors opening and closing quickly as someone strode into the room behind her.

“My, my, my, Alexandra,” Alex heard from behind her. “I have to say, I always knew you would look stunning in anything, but practically nothing suits you even better than I thought it would.”

“Lord,” Alex ground out as she turned around.

“Long way from National City, agent,” Max said as he casually strolled forward, leading with his pelvis in some way that Alex supposed was intended to project casual swagger and not his fragile masculinity. “Long way from super girl.”

“You know what they say about space, Lord? No one can hear you scream,” Alex said as her eyes narrowed.

“You’re trying to threaten me with Alien? Can’t you tell we’re in Gladiator here?” Max said.

“Nice to know you think of yourself as a lecherous fop, just like everyone else does,” Alex said, body rigid. Max laughed as he pantomimed being stabbed in the heart.

“Ouch! You always did know how to go for the jugular,” Max said. “But you should be a lot more grateful to me, Alexandra. I just spoke with Roulette, and she let me purchase you. You don’t have to fight anymore! Unless you enjoy that part. You seemed pretty into it earlier.”

“What?” Alex hissed.

“Right? Pretty nice of me, especially after the whole kidnapping and threatening to murder me business. Of course, I can’t let you leave, but you’ll have the run of a very secure Lord Tech facility hidden away from Earth’s prying eyes. Your social company might be a little limited, but unlike this place, I can offer you a real bed, actual food, my charming conversation, even your very own lab, within reason of course, and a break from the perpetual threat of a gruesome death. Netflix. Dr. Pepper. The works.”

“I see,” Alex said. “I suppose the dress code wouldn’t be much better.”

“Well, like I said, you look stunning in anything,” Max said. “I’m sure arrangements could be made if you wanted a shift in wardrobe. There is one catch, however.”

“One?” Alex said dryly, and Max smiled his half embarrassed, half gloating frat boy smile.

“Just the one. I need you to do something to convince me of your good faith in going along with this little arrangement, given our previous disagreements and your well-known kink of humiliating me,” Max said.

“And what would this leap of faith happen to be? Eating snail eggs again?” Alex asked. 

“You will never let that joke die,” Max said with a tsking sound. “I think you know exactly what I’m asking you to do, Alex. Just once, then you never have to again, if you don’t want to.”

“I’m sure,” Alex said, pausing for a second. “What about Maggie?”

“Detective Sawyer? Your cellmate here?” Max asked. “Well, I don’t think Roulette will sell her.”

“Did you ask?” Alex asked.

“No, but there’s no way Roulette would agree to it. She knows too much. I mean, she knows who you are, even. There’s no way she’s letting Sawyer and you out. I barely managed to bargain for you, and you were not exactly cheap,” Max said. “So, this deal is just about you. Here and now. Do you accept, or not? Because if you walk away from this now, I guarantee you that I won’t be able to protect either you or Sawyer from that cage of yours.”

Alex turned her head to the side.

“You know what’s funny, Max?” Alex asked after a thoughtful moment. 

“What?” Max asked. 

“How incredibly stupid you are,” Alex said.

“How’s that?” Max asked, with a slow blink as he leaned back with his arms crossed behind him. 

Alex took the miniscule distraction as an opening to lunge forward and snap his head back by his short hair, exposing his neck for a vicious bite to the neck, ignoring the delayed fully body jerk Max’s martial arts training afforded him. With a firm grip, Alex tasted the hot blood in her mouth before she threw the shocked CEO to the ground. 

She watched him clutch at his severed arteries with a shock written on his face as his heart pumped his life blood onto the ground in a spurting mess. He tried to say something, but all that came out was a gargled cry seconds before Alex brought her heel down on Lord’s throat, crushing his larynx and guaranteeing his death.

“You forgot that I said I would kill you if I saw you again,” Alex said with a bloody grin, seconds before guards surged into the room and tackled her to the floor, delivering savage blows to her midsection as she was held down. Alex simply laughed as she took the brutal beating until she was unable to, feeling ribs snap and her own blood mix with Lord’s in her mouth, seconds before she felt a particularly hard boot to the stomach trigger her gag reflex. The beating continued unabated as Alex received blow after blow for her attack. Between the strikes, she noticed a nurse rush in and check Lord’s pulse before rocking back on her heels in defeat.

Once the guards got tired of hitting her, she was dragged, bleary eyed and hurting in places she hadn’t even known had existed, back to the Arena. She gasped in agony as her arms were yanked above her head and slapped into manacles. Moments later, Alex raised her slumped head enough to see Roulette storming towards her across the arena.

“Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve killed one of my best clients,” Roulette said. “Do you think that because you’re popular that you’re profitable enough to make up for me losing a client like Max Lord?”

“He got himself killed,” Alex growled before she spat out the blood in her mouth, wincing as she took in a ragged breath. “Wanted too close to the action. Personal vendetta.”

Roulette hit Alex in her broken ribs, sending a fiery wave of pain through Alex that left her unable to concentrate on anything other than gasping. She only barely managed to hold off Vulpes and devolve into a growling, twitching mess that would almost assuredly get her killed in her current situation. 

“He was offering me enough Lord stocks to launder almost my entire empire. Do you understand how valuable that would have been?” Roulette seethed.

“He works with the DEO,” Alex said. “He only wanted me, he doesn’t care about money. Once he had me he would have sold you out in a second. Think about it.”

Roulette gave her a hard stare. 

“He’s really worked with the DEO before?” She said.

“How do you think we met?” Alex wheezed. Roulette seemed to think for several second before she turned back to Alex.

“You understand I still have to make an example out of you,” Roulette said. “Can’t have slaves killing clients, even if they are snakes in the grass like you say.”

Alex only grunted.

“Tell you what. We’ll see if Lady Luck is smiling on you after the flogging. If your story checks out with my sources, I’ll put you back under full-range blue sunlight, give you a day’s rest, and then have you fight every day for a month. Survive that, and I’ll consider letting you spend the rest of your days as an arena champion,” Roulette said dismissively. “Monthly fights, better quarters. You know the deal.”

Alex felt her stomach sink at the offer. She knew that Roulette wasn’t going to let her fight lightweights, and the prospect of an entire month of fighting was daunting, especially with the short rest. Alex knew that a psychopath like Roulette had no intention of letting her live to become a champion after she had undermined her authority, and that the point of the exercise was so that when she eventually died the rest of the slaves would fall into place after seeing the futility of rebellion.

“Other option is Gurb flogs you to death and we leave your body hanging for the carrion flies as a reminder to everyone in the arena what happens to rebellion,” Roulette said with narrowed eyes and a sneer when she saw Alex considering her options. “But I get less fights out of you that way.”

“Deal,” Alex grunted.

“Excellent,” Roulette said as she pulled out a device, motioning to Gurb as she strode past. “Don’t kill her, but give her something to the think about as you drag her back. And don’t let her turn around.”

Gurb nodded, before he pulled back the bull whip he had in his hand and let it slash across Alex’s stomach, leaving behind a bright red ribbon of pain only made worse by the bruises already forming on her chest. The searing pain was nearly indescribable as the leather cord slashed through the air. Alex screamed by the fourth hit. By the twentieth, when Gurb stopped, Alex was hanging limply by her arms.

When she thrown into her cell, Alex was only vaguely aware of someone gasping at her condition. Then she felt a gentle hand cradle her head in her head as she was moved into a familiar lap and a cool cloth begin dabbing at her face, across where at least one errant lash mark had landed, slicing a line over her eye socket from her forehead to her jaw. Half-opening her swollen eyes, she saw Maggie’s face framed by the simulated blue sunlight inside her cell.

“Danvers, stay with me. Danvers, come one, listen to my voice,” Maggie said in a desperately quiet voice. “Jesus, what did they do you?”

Alex could only whimper softly as she tried futilely to find a comfortable position from her many injuries.

“Don’t try to talk, you have broken ribs and god know what else,” Maggie said as she absentmindedly brushed some of Alex’s matted hair out of her eyes, moisture gathering in her eyes. “Just rest. I have you, Alex. I have you.”

Alex felt tears slip out of her own eyes at the soft murmurs of comfort Maggie whispered to her. Despite the searing pain and the disturbing burning itch she felt under her skin she from the unnaturally fast healing of the simulated blue sunlight, Alex felt peaceful as she lay in Maggie’s lap. Eventually, she drifted off to a deep sleep as her body healed itself.


	6. Breaking Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your patience, this chapter took a million years to write because of real life reasons. I hope you like it!

When she awoke, Alex felt stiff and sore all over. Taking an experimental breath, she almost screamed as her skin felt like it was cracking open along a dozen seams, ripping scar tissue and reopening the deep lash marks cut into her flesh. Through the pain she noticed that her ribs had knit back together enough to spare her the worst of dealing with her injuries remarkably quickly. Alex took short, shallow breaths as she tried to move her skin as little as possible as the blue light above her quickly knit her fresh wounds back together. 

Alex cursed Roulette’s healing technology. She realized that it must be targeted for major injuries despite its inability to deal with scar tissue or heal deep soft tissue injuries correctly. Alex wondered if that was intentional, to keep her and her fellow slaves in pain even as it kept them alive. It would certainly be in Roulette’s modus operandi. Alex grunted as another itching latticework of discomfort spread across her skin. She figured she would have to test it if she ever got back to her DEO lab.

Opening her eyes, Alex saw Maggie peacefully slumped against the corner of the cage wall, breathing steadily. The look on her face was breathtakingly peaceful, and Alex couldn’t stop a small smile from spreading on her face despite the burning pain of her reopened wounds. Alex grunted as she felt a particularly deep twinge of pain in her chest as she accidently took too deep of a breath, causing Maggie to stir.

“Hey,” Alex said weakly. 

“Danvers,” Maggie said softly as she blinked the sleep from her still relaxed face as she reached to caress Alex’s face, carefully avoiding the long stripe that ran from her cheek to her forehead, running just over her eye. “You’re awake.”

“Yeah,” Alex rasped, carefully shifting herself to a more comfortable position. “I don’t remember much after I got back, but thank you.”

“Of course,” Maggie said, face creasing with worry. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I got hit by a truck,” Alex winced as she tried to shift again. “Multiple trucks. But my ribs are good enough, considering, and swelling doesn’t seem half as bad as it should be. Soft tissue seems like an issue, but it’ll heal.”

“That’s good, but you look like one big cut up bruise from the neck down,” Maggie said with obvious worry in her voice. “Not much better from the neck up.”

“I think you’re beautiful too,” Alex mumbled.

“Of course I think you’re beautiful, I’m just worried,” Maggie said, turning slightly red once she realized what she had said. “Did you reopen anything?”

“Yes. I don’t think it’s calibrated to heal soft tissue damage very well, which explains the scars,” Alex said. “I just didn’t realize how deep I was cut last night.”

“When they dumped you in here, I thought- for a minute I thought you were dead,” Maggie said with a slightly choked voice. 

“You already told me I’m not allowed to die,” Alex joked back softly and Maggie let out a short laugh before her eyes turned serious again.

“What happened?” Maggie asked.

“You remember the man who was with Roulette?” Alex asked quietly.

“The one you said wasn’t important?” Maggie asked.

“Him,” Alex said. “What kind of phone did you have? On Earth?”

“Lord Tech,” Maggie said with a puzzled look on her face before realization hit her. “Wait, that was Maxwell Lord?”

“Yep,” Alex said. “He’s the one that wanted to see me.”

“Why?” Maggie asked.

“He wanted to buy me. Put me up in a nicer cage of his making somewhere. Fuck me. Presumably seduce me at some point,” Alex said with a derisive snort. “The typical things Max wants, only in a better position to actually make it happen.”

“That piece of shit,” Maggie said angrily.

“I would have said yes if I could have gotten you out,” Alex said quietly. “Max is a snake. He wouldn’t have given a shit once he felt like he had me. I’m sorry.”

“Alex, you have nothing to be sorry for,” Maggie said as she caressed her cheek. “Don’t ever feel like I would want you to hurt yourself like that for me.”

“Doesn’t matter. I don’t think I can take the deal anymore,” Alex said with a chuckle that immediately caused her hand to fly to her ribs.

“Wait, you knew Maxwell Lord from before?” Maggie asked as she cocked her head sideways, and despite the situation, Alex felt her heart flutter at the sight a little bit before she grimaced at the thought of her interactions with Max.

“I didn’t just know him, I even went a date with him as part of an op,” Alex said. “He fed me snail eggs. It was exactly as romantic as that sounds.”

“I’m assuming you’re not on the best of terms, then,” Maggie said.

“We have a complicated relationship that boils down to him being a xenophobe who was impressed by my lack of caring about his giant pile of money but then being enraged by the fact that I wouldn’t jack off his ego,” Alex said. “Or excuse his illegal human medical experimentation.”

“Jesus. I just thought he was a jerk to his employees,” Maggie said.

“That too, but I regularly threaten my employees with violence, so I figured I’d let him have than one,” Alex said with a small shrug.

“So why aren’t you halfway to where Lord wanted to squirrel you away to by now?” Maggie asked.

“I turned him down,” Alex said.

“I didn’t know that was an option when you were someone else’s property,” Maggie said.

“I turned him down fatally,” Alex said and Maggie’s eyebrows raised.

“Damn, Danvers,” Maggie said. “Anyone ever tell you you’re one scary bitch?”

Alex chuckled and said, “All the time.”

“Show off,” Maggie said as she was rewarded with a faint chuckle from the red head. 

“About yesterday, in the arena,” Alex said, as she achingly searched for Maggie’s hand for half a second before the brunette clasped Alex’s hand in her own. “I don’t remember everything, and a lot of it’s fuzzy. But I remember that you didn’t let me get stabbed in the back. I wanted to say thank you, and I wanted to know how you’re doing.”

Maggie squeezed Alex’s surprisingly warm hand, and felt her eyebrows knit together in confusion.

“I’m… well, I don’t feel great about it, but I don’t really regret it,” Maggie said. “Not as much as I thought I would, at least. And I think that’s a little disconcerting, but frankly I would do it again to protect you. I’m starting to think I would be willing to do a lot of things I wouldn’t have thought I would ever do to protect you.”

Alex smiled and squeezed Maggie’s hand as she closed her eyes. Maggie was about to ask Alex if she was in pain when she saw moisture start to slip from the corner of Alex eye.

“Hey, hey are you ok?” Maggie asked. Alex let out a half exasperated sigh as she rolled her eyes up to make contact with Maggie’s, her voice strained by emotion even after she let out a huff of breath.

“I’m sorry, I just never thought that someone would… I’m not great at letting people in,” Alex said. 

“You seem pretty good at it to me,” Maggie said with a smile as she brushed a tear away with her thumb. “Besides, you’re going to have to be patient with me, too. I’m no saint.”

“You are to me,” Alex said quietly. “Before you came, I was just surviving on instinct. You make me want to survive for something. For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m enough when I’m with you.”

“Alex,” Maggie said with a gentle murmur as she brushed a strand of Alex’s hair behind her ear. “You’re an incredible woman. You’re one of a kind. And you will always be so much more than enough for me.”

Alex let out a quiet startle of joy at Maggie’s statement as she blinked rapidly at the tears that continued down her face.

“We’re going get you healthy, and you’re going to make it out of this hell hole, ok? We’re going to get out of here, and I’m going to meet your sister and show you my favorite bar and we’re going to get a dog,” Maggie said firmly. 

“Can we name her Gertrude?” Alex said with a sniffle.

“Yeah, we can name her Gertrude,” Maggie said as she stroked Alex’s hair. “When’s the soonest you think you’ll be able to get out of here?”

Alex grimaced as she shifted slightly. 

“After tomorrow’s fight. I’m going to need all the way up to the fight to heal up, and we need some way to get out of this cage without a dozen guards around,” Alex said. “We wait a few hours after the fight, lure Gurb over here, kill him and take his keys.”

“Sounds like a plan, assuming you don’t get killed during your fight,” Maggie said.

“Haven’t lost yet,” Alex said with a grim smile as she grasped Maggie’s hand. “I’ll come back.”

The day flew by as Maggie helped Alex through the painful process of breaking up the scar tissue under her skin periodically to give her enough pain-free mobility to fight in the arena. The detective hated seeing the grimace on Alex’s face every time she adjusted her body, but she knew that it would help keep her alive against whatever Roulette was going to throw at her. The only thing that made it even a little bearable to see the deep lattice work of fresh scars reopen over and over on her love was the look of utter determination on Alex’s face and the knowledge that they were going to end their time on this barren rock tantalizingly soon, one way or another.

When Gurb came and took Alex away, Maggie had expected to be herded out to watch Alex’s fight along with the rest of the prisoners. However, none of the guards let her out of her cage, and she had to wait in agonizing darkness as Alex fought for her life against God knew what in the sand. By the time she was sure she had worn a hole in the concrete floor with the heel of her foot from her anxious tapping, she finally heard the door to the arena open again. 

After another agonizing 5 minutes of watching uninterested prisoners shuffle past that felt more like 5 years, Gurb came whistling through an opening in his teeth as he pushed Alex’s cage down the hallway. When he stopped in front of Maggie’s cell, chuckled at the snarling still coming from Alex, still covered in blood from her last fight.

“Yes, yes, Vulpes, I know it was just bad luck, and you’ll always hold a special place in my heart, but I can’t exactly bet on you next time. Not looking like you do,” Gurb said as he shooed a surprisingly vulnerable looking but still growling and snapping Alex into the cage with Maggie. “Not even I can bet on Vulpes this time.”

As Alex sat in the corner of the cage, strangely unmoving, Maggie felt her heart drop into her stomach in worry as she cautiously approached her. She was met by a vicious snap at the air when Maggie held out a hand, and Maggie thanked Alex silently for the boost to her reflexes. Otherwise, Vulpes would have likely just taken several of her fingers off, but Maggie couldn’t even feel an ounce of worry for herself as she tried to determine why Alex was acting so strange. 

“Hey, hey, Alex, come on, you know me,” Maggie said soothingly as her heart raced a mile a minute as she conjoured up every nightmare scenario as to what was wrong with Alex. Alex simply growled back in warning.

“Don’t give me that,” Maggie chastised lightly. “I’m just trying to calm you down. I’m a friend, remember?”

Alex slunk to the back of the cage, whimpering as she warily watched Maggie.

“Oh god, your ankle,” Maggie said, gasping as she saw the already dark purple bruise from under the skin from where Alex was crouched in the cramped cage. Alex gave a low warning growl as Maggie began to move towards her.

“Hey, listen, I know that probably hurts like hell, and you’re amped up from the fighting and the pain, but please, just let me take care of you?” Maggie said softly. Alex looked at her pleadingly as she dipped her head once and then twice, leaving her head in the lowered position as Maggie slowly approached her. Letting Alex nuzzle against her neck, Maggie held her close to her chest for several long minutes as her pupils slowly dilated back down to their normal size.

“You back?” Maggie asked.

“I’m back,” Alex said in a hoarse voice, wincing when she tried to shift her weight. “Fuck.”

“I’m not a doctor, but I’d say you jacked up your ankle pretty good,” Maggie said. 

“Well, I am a doctor, and you’re right,” Alex said as she let out a sigh of relief as she got her ankle into a slightly more comfortable position. “This is going to make running out of here a little tricky.”

“Alex, you wouldn’t make it out here with that ankle, and I’m not letting you throw yourself away for me,” Maggie said. Alex looked like she was going to argue when Maggie lightly brushed Alex’s ankle with her hand, causing Alex to inhale sharply. 

“Point taken,” Alex said. 

“Did you win at least?” Maggie asked.

“Well, he doesn’t have a hand anymore, so I’d say so,” Alex said with a grimace. “God, I would cut off someone else’s hand for some ibuprofen right now.”

“Yeah, the best you’re going to get is some mood lighting,” Maggie said as the simulated blue sunlight turned on almost on cue. 

“Great,” Alex said. “Can’t wait for my next fight.”

“Will you even be able to fight with your ankle like that?” Maggie asked anxiously.

“I should be healed up enough to get threw the fight,” Alex said. “I should be ok. Roulette told the crowd as I was being carted away that I was going to fight someone I shouldn’t have to run around too much to take out next time.”

The next fight came and went in the same strange pattern as before, with Alex taken away from her to leave Maggie stewing in her own juices. However, this time Gurb returned with a much more disappointed look on his face. 

“You’re right, Vulpes, you’re right, I should have stuck with the rule,” he said ruefully as Alex slipped back into the cage with Maggie. “I should never have doubted you, even with the ankle.”

Alex calmed down almost immediately, and explained to Maggie that her fight had only lasted about 20 seconds because her opponent had thrown a knife at Alex slow enough for her catch it. Alex didn’t make the same mistake when she threw it back.

“Well that has to be good for your ankle, to be able to rest it up like that,” Maggie said with a slight frown as she examined the deep cut in Alex’s palm.

“Relax, I didn’t even cut through the dermis,” Alex said. “My hand will be fine.”

“Will your ankle be ready tonight?” Maggie asked in a low voice.

“No. It’s still pretty sore, even with the rest and the rapid healing,” Alex said. “I need at least another day.”

“All right. I’m just worried that they haven’t been bringing me out to see you. Do you think they know that we have a way out of here?” Maggie asked.

“Maybe, but I doubt it. They would have just tossed our cell or shot us if they suspected,” Alex said. 

“Good point,” Maggie said. “It’s weird, though.”

Maggie decided to get some answers through some good old-fashioned detective work the next time Gurb stopped by to pick up Alex.

“How come I don’t get to watch our girl fight?” Maggie asked. “Roulette actually makes the other fighters watch, what’s different about me?”

“You have a fight coming up,” Gurb said cryptically. “You need to be well rested.”

“But there isn’t even anyone fighting right now except for Alex…” Maggie trailed off as the realization hit her like a ton of bricks. Gurb laughed.

“Never bet against foxy. It was nice having you around, while you lasted, detective,” Gurb said as he casually strolled down the hall, taking Alex to her next fight.

Once Alex was back in the cage that night, Maggie fretting over a new black eye and bruised ribs Alex had received on top of her old injuries, she told Alex what she had figured out.

“They’re going to make us fight soon,” Maggie said.

“What?” Alex said suddenly, sitting straight up from where she was leaning against the wall tiredly. “Is that why you haven’t been seeing me fight?”

“I guess so. That’s what Gurb said,” Maggie said. “It makes sense if Roulette is trying to break you for what you did to Max."

“We leave tomorrow then,” Alex said with an air of finality. 

“How? We can’t get out of this cage,” Maggie said. 

“Yes, we can. When Gurb pushes the portable cage up to ours, I push it out into the hallway,” Alex said.

“And what, die in a hail of gunfire from the ten other guards?” Maggie said.

“Maybe. They aren’t the best shots. Either way, it will give you a chance to get out behind me,” Alex said stubbornly. “I’d rather die escaping than in the arena.”

“Danvers, that’s a terrible plan,” Maggie said.

“It’s the only one we have, and you can’t stop me. Just be ready,” Alex said as she lay down in their sleeping area with her back to Maggie.

“God, and they say Latina’s are dramatic,” Maggie said tightly under her breath. “At least let me distract them or something before you jump out.”

Alex didn’t say anything for a while before she finally said, “Fine.”

“We can do this, Alex. We’re going to make it out of here,” Maggie whispered to Alex’s neck as she cuddled up behind her. “I’m going to get you that dog with a stupid white girl name.”

“This is why Gertrude is going to love me more,” Alex mumbled back, earning a chuckle out of Maggie as she settled down to sleep with Alex, feeling some of the anxiety squeezing her chest like a vice evaporate. 

Maggie barely slept a wink regardless.

The next morning, Gurb came to their cage whistling the same off-pitch tune he always did when he came to get Alex. Maggie subtly shifted herself close to the bars of the cage, where she could easily shove Gurb off-balance when the moment came.

“Today’s gonna be a tough fight for you, Vulpes, but I know not to bet against you. Not after last time, anyway,” Gurb said cheerily. “Carpophorus is going to have himself a very bad day.”

“Carpophorus?” Alex asked, frozen inches from her position.

“Don’t worry. Sure, he’s killed a whole lot of beasties, it’s his specialty, but you’ll do him in. He’s never fought a beast like you,” Gurb said confidently. “Come on now, climb in.”

Alex did so as she shot a meaningful expression to Maggie.

“See you after the fight,” Alex said as she held Maggie’s gaze. “Don’t go anywhere.”

Gurb guffawed.

“Well I’ll be, foxy is growing a sense of humor,” Gurb said cheerily as he pushed the cage down the hallway. “Today’s just full of surprises.”

Maggie remained frozen, wracking her brains for the entire time that Alex was away with what Alex’s plan was. Clearly, it involved Carpophorus, but despite all of her detective skills she couldn’t figure out even the broad outlines.

After what felt like an eternity, Maggie finally heard Gurb return with the cage.

“Quiet today, are we foxy? Took everything out on Carpophorus, didn’t you?” Gurb said as a blood covered Alex climbed into the cage with Maggie. “Well, you sure messed him up. Bad. It’s good to see you back to form.”

Alex let out a half-hearted growl as Gurb left, but it didn’t sound like Vulpes at all. There wasn’t the same unrestrained element, and Maggie saw that Alex seemed like she was going to vomit. Suddenly Alex made a deep retching sound in her throat.

“Danvers, come on, stay with me,” Maggie said as she moved forward to put an arm around Alex when she made the sound in her throat again. Finally, she took several deep breaths through her nose, her eyebrows knit together in concentration. Turning suddenly to the side, Alex made a deep retching sound as her hand flew to her mouth as she expelled something from her mouth.

“Don’t try to catch it, let it out,” Maggie said gently as she moved to hold Alex’s hair back. 

“Is anyone watching?” Alex said in a barely audible voice as she stayed frozen and bent over the side of Maggie’s lap. 

“No,” Maggie breathed.

“Good,” Alex said quietly, and Maggie had to hold back her own urge to violently expel her stomach when Alex straightened up painfully and held a severed, intact eyeball up to the blue lamp above them.

“Jesus,” Maggie hissed. “What the hell, Danvers!”

“I had to do a bit of impromptu surgery today,” Alex said like that explained why she was holding an eyeball in her hand.

“Why?” Maggie asked in a low voice.

“Cells can stay alive for hours, sometimes even days after they’re detached from the main body,” Alex said as she spit an impressive amount blood from her mouth into the hole in the floor before continuing. “And Carpophorus was a Daxamite, so, under a yellow sun, he coulld fire heat vision from his eyes.”

“So that eye is going to absorb the energy from the simulated blue sunlight and turn it into a laser?” Maggie asked in disbelief. 

“That’s the idea,” Alex said as she flashed a bloody grin at Maggie, who despite her queasy stomach was fascinated by the DEO agent’s resourcefulness. 

“Well how much sunlight should it take?” Maggie asked.

“It should already be charged,” Alex said with a frown. “Wait, whenever Supergirl fired her heat vision, she always had a pissed look in her eyes, maybe I need to to…”

Alex put a second hand up to the eyeball and squeezed gently with her fingers, causing Maggie to gag slightly despite the number of grisly scenes she had come across as a cop. Seconds later, a bolt of blue energy fired from the eyeball, cleanly cutting through the lock on the door.

“Squeeze the cornea,” Alex said with a triumphant grin as she turned to Maggie, who was caught between being more than a little in awe of how radiant her girlfriend looked having just solved a puzzle and her own squeamishness.

“Great job, babe,” Maggie said as she felt her stomach roil slightly. 

“Are you ok?” Alex asked in concern.

“Yep. No, the laser beam thing was really cool,” Maggie said as she stoically tried to nod in approval.

“It’s the eye, isn’t it?” Alex asked in slight disappointment.

“God yes, it’s so squishy, put it down,” Maggie said as she turned away. 

“Sorry, biology degree,” Alex said as she sheepishly put the eyeball down before quickly moving to gather her things from their hiding spot. “Once you’ve done a sagittal section on a human face you have a skewed sense of disgust.”

“It’s ok, lets just get out of here while I don’t think of how that was in your mouth for like, a solid twenty minutes,” Maggie said, as she felt her sense of resolve solidify before she yanked open the cage door. “After you.”

As Alex cautiously poked her head out into the long hallway, she immediately pulled back as she heard heavy footsteps coming towards them. When Gurb’s legs came into view seconds later, he made an astonished sound.

“Vulpes’ cage is-” were the only words he got out before Alex had him pinned against the opposite wall with her shiv through his throat. Strong alien hands from the cage behind him reached out and helped secure the still struggling reptile as Alex leaned into the dying alien’s face.

“My name is Alex. Fucking. Danvers. You cheery sadist,” She hissed before she let him slump to the ground with a death rattle, pulling the gun from his belt. The fighter behind him had already grabbed his set of electronic keys and began trying to unlock his own cage. 

“Pass the keys along when you get out,” Alex whispered, and the fighter nodded solemnly as he continued struggling to open his cage. Tossing Gurb’s shock stick to Maggie, Alex took off at a brisk but silent trot down the hallway in a way that made her lethal DEO training immediately apparent, Maggie following behind as her body remembered her tactical training before she did.

“Wouldn’t it better to get more people?” Maggie asked quietly from behind Alex as they moved through the bowels of arena. “Break some of them out with us?”

Alex shook her head as she kept moving.

“Time is the most important asset we have. I would love to break them all out, but we’ll be serving them better if we can come back with the big guns,” Alex said. “And our chances are better with them as a distraction.”

Maggie nodded in understanding. Given the choice, she would break them all out, but Alex was right. They needed to focus on shutting Roulette down, not saving the handful of people in their cell block. Besides, she would rather to go down swinging against the people locking her up than die in the arena for entertainment is he had the option, so it seemed fair to offer the other fighters there that choice. 

As the pair made their way through the halls, Maggie referenced the homemade compass Alex had given her while Alex steered them around the guards. As she followed Alex slinking her way down the hall, she would occasionally direct Alex where to go with silent hand signals while the lethal agent led with the gun.

“Ok, we’re here,” Maggie said. “The compass is going crazy.”

“It’s got to be behind those doors,” Alex said as she pointed to a set of double doors guarded by two guards. “On three. One, two.”

Alex stepped out into the open and put two well aimed shots into both guards, who were thrown back bodily against the wall from the force of the impact.

“That packs a punch,” Maggie said enthusiastically as she grabbed one for herself off one of the guards before she followed Alex into the gate room.

“Bloom comes off the rose when they start shooting back at you,” Alex said coolly as she let a small smile creep into her focused demeanor as she took a position to the side of the door. She nodded to Maggie, and they breached the gate room together. 

Maggie and Alex quickly cleared the room finding it completely empty except for a large metal frame with a computer station to the side of it. As soon as they had cleared the room, Alex began to move towards the computer, but before she could even touch it a loud klaxon sounded and red lighting replaced the previous industrial florescent. 

“Prison break, cellblock 3, prison break, cellblock 3,” came an authoritative voice over the loud speaker.

“Looks like they found out about our diversion,” Alex said tightly as she moved to try to open the portal. 

However, instead of the previous set of commands, now the screen only read “LOCK DOWN IN PROGRESS.” Alex began rapidly pressing keys to try to move past it.

“They must have an automatic lock down tied to the alarm on this thing,” Alex said in frustration. 

“Shit,” Maggie said.

She stared at the useless hunk of metal that seconds before had represented an instantaneous trip back to Earth.

“Prison break, cell block 3, prison break, Gate Room,” the announcer called.

“Well, looks like we’re going to have company,” Alex said grimly as she drew her gun, abandoning her efforts to work around the lock down. 

Klaxons blared loudly as rotating alarms bathing both Maggie and Alex in dancing red lights as they made eye contact. Maggie tightened her grip on her energy pistol as she locked eyes with Alex, silently communicating assurance to the redhead.

“We don’t have a back-up plan,” Maggie said quietly. 

“Yeah, we do,” Alex said as she grimly checked the charge level on her energy pistol. “I’m gonna shoot my way to the hanger or die trying. You with me?”

“Ride or die,” Maggie said with a grim smile of her own as she go into position on the other side of the door to the hallway.


	7. Escape Velocity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I haven't updated in a million years. This chapter is kind of short, but I'm tired of it sitting on my word document taunting me.
> 
> Anyway, here's a truncated part of the original chapter 7, which has grown prodigiously over the past several months to monstrous proportions

“How are we going to know where to go?” Maggie asked as they lined up on either side of the double doors they had just come from.

“I have a pretty good idea of where it is from the first escape attempt. It’s just down hallway,” Alex said as she took a position next to the door.

“And how do we deal with the guards?” Maggie asked.

“Try not to get shot,” Alex said.

“Good plan,” Maggie said.

Alex continued to stare at Maggie.

“I love you,” She said softly.

“I know,” Maggie said softly as a lump formed in her throat she pushed down. “Tell me when we’re back on Earth.”

“All right. All right, on three,” Alex said, exhaling as an expression chillingly similar to Vulpes crossed her face. “One. Two.”

Alex opened the door silently on the count of three, taking the lead down the hallway. 

Maggie remembered hearing the first bark of Alex’s alien pistol in the hallway a few seconds later, remembered sliding in behind her to cover her rear and flank as the pair moved down the hallway at a dead run. Maggie focused on the few guards Alex left in her wake. She imagined targets in the middle of their chests as the pair tore down the hallway. The gun had almost no recoil. It almost seemed fake, more like a toy than a serious weapon. Sound and space seemed distant concerns as sparks flew everywhere and screams echoed during their perilous sprint. 

After what seemed like seconds, Maggie threw herself through a door. Alex hit a wall panel on her way through the door, sealing them inside with a hiss. Alex fired two shots at the only other figure in the large space they found themselves in, not even watching him crumple to the ground as she began searching for new targets. Maggie shot the door control panel behind her, creating a temporary lock until the guards could force the doors. 

“Maggie. Maggie. Stop,” Alex said calmly as Maggie continued searching for new targets, her pistol swinging wildly around empty space before she felt a reassuring hand on her shoulder. As she put her pistol down, she realized her ears were ringing and her hands were locked in a vice grip around her pistol.

“Hey, hey, it’s all right, were through,” Alex said reassuringly.

Maggie remembered how to breathe again as she peeled her shaking hands from her pistol, taking several deep breaths before responding.

“Fuck,” Maggie whispered as she turned and desperately looked Alex over for signs of damage. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. We have to find a ship before they break down those doors or circle around,” Alex said coolly as she ran a hand through her hair in distraction as she surveyed the ships around her. “That, and learn how to fly a space ship I’ve never flown before.”

“This is a Federal kind of plan if I’ve ever heard one,” Maggie grumbled as she pointed at the closest one. “That one ok?”

“Looks like some kind of Daxamite shuttle,” Alex said thoughtfully before a door opened on the opposite side of the hanger seconds before plasma began to fly into the hanger. 

“It’ll do!” Alex yelled as she ran up the ramp with Maggie close on her heels. Sliding into the cockpit, Alex glanced around desperately. 

“Shit,” she said as she began scrolling through menus.

“What now?” Maggie said as she took a defensive position with her gun trained on the slowly closing door of the shuttle.

“This Kryptonian doesn’t look right,” Alex said warily as she pushed a button experimentally.

“Relaxation module, engaged,” said a silky female voice as the interior lights dimmed and a small, slowly rotating ball of lights descended from the ceiling. Seconds later, a gentle alien melody began to play.

“Ok, wrong button,” Alex muttered as guards started to pour into the hanger bay and fire at the ship, rocking it in a series of small explosions. Fortunately, most of the effect seemed to be held at bay by the ships shields, but quick glance at the monitor showed a depleting bar that Alex assumed was shield power. 

“So that’s bad,” Alex muttered to herself

“Danvers, what’s wrong?” Maggie said as she hurried to Alex as the door finally slid fully shut.

“I don’t know how to start this thing, I can’t read the Daxamese buttons and I think that’s how long we have until we get blown up,” Alex said, pointing to the bar that was now at 80 percent.

“Shit,” Maggie said.

“Yeah,” Alex said as she tried another button, turning on the exterior lights. 

In desperation, Maggie started pushing buttons in the seat next to Alex, none of which had any visible effect until she pushed a large red one with a safety on it. 

“Defensive systems activated,” the ship’s computer said in the same disinterested tone as before. Light and sparks exploded in the hanger bay as several onboard canons slid smoothly from their hidden compartments in the hull of the ship and began firing into the hanger, sending the guards to scramble for cover before they continued their assault.

“Shit,” Alex said quietly.

“What? That was good, wasn’t it?” Maggie asked as the ship exchanged fire with the guards.

“I ran out of switches,” Alex said. “Except for this one.”

“Well then it has to be that one,” Maggie said as she reached for it before Alex caught her wrist.

“See that symbol? That means explode in Kryptonese,” Alex said tightly. “It could be the self-destruct.”

“Shit,” Maggie said.

“Yeah,” Alex said, as she desperately looked around for anything else that could possibly be the way to turn on the engines.

“Danvers, we’re out of time,” Maggie said as she pointed to the shield bar, which was now blinking red as it shrunk to less than 10 percent of it’s length. “We have to try it.”

“Fuck,” Alex said as she reached for the switch. Looking into Maggie’s eyes, she flipped the switch.

The engines roared to life as the ship lifted from the ground of the hanger. Turning the ship around, the guards scrambled for cover to avoid the burning heat of the engine exhaust as Alex slammed the throttle forward to send the ship rocketing over the surface of the alien moon. 

“Hell yeah, Danvers!” Maggie exclaimed as Alex pulled back gently on the joystick and sent them hurtling heavenward. “Or should I call you Agent Dr. Dr. Captain Danvers now?”

“Please, Agent Dr. Dr. Captain Danvers is my mother,” Alex said with a grin as she fell back into her chair and ran a hand through her hair as the ship took off into space. Looking out the rear viewing panel, Maggie saw the rapidly receding dot of the now burning hanger.

“I don’t think we’ll have to worry about anyone following us from there for a while,” Maggie said as she let out a breath as ship continued to accelerate. “How fast can this thing go?”

“Pretty damn fast, apparently. We’re already clearing the upper atmosphere,” Alex said as Maggie turned around.

“Holy shit, we’re in space,” Maggie said in wonder as she looked out the window as they quickly passed above the atmosphere.

“We’ve been in space,” Alex said, and Maggie rolled her eyes. 

“No, we were in a concrete box. This, this is being in space,” Maggie said as she pointed to the gas giant the moon they were on was orbiting. “Come on, I know the circumstances aren’t exactly ideal, but haven’t you wanted to be in space since you were a little girl?”

“I guess the idea became a little mundane to me at some point,” Alex said with a small shrug as she failed to suppress a small smile at how animated Maggie had become. “But I think I see your point.”

“There aren’t any patrols, are there?” Maggie asked as she tore her gaze from the view port to the various screens around them.

“I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure that screen is the scopes, and it’s only showing the planet and the moon. I think we’re alone up here,” Alex said. “But we’re not out of the woods yet. I still have to figure out where we are and how to fly back to earth without killing us.”

“I’ll go check out the supplies situation, then,” Maggie offered as she stood up. “Figure out how to get us home.”

“I’ll try. Apparently Daxamite and Kryptonese are different enough that this isn’t going to be easy though,” Alex said as her eyebrows knitted together as she leaned forward and concentrated.

“One more thing, Danvers,” Maggie said as she guided Alex’s face up with the crook of her finger and kissed her deeply before pulling away. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Alex said as a genuine smile slowly reached her eyes for the first time in what felt like years. 

“Don’t get sappy on me,” Maggie said as she walked away with a smile on her face as she left her girlfriend to calculate the journey home.

Despite not speaking a word of Daxamite, Maggie was able to get enough information through trial and error to figure out the food and sleeping quarters situations in a few hours. Food and water seemed to come out of a vending machine type apparatus that actually created food based on a set series of menu options from a few base components. Thanks to a helpful diagram, Maggie realized that the system used recycled waste products from the crew back into edible food, meaning that they were in no danger of running out of food or water. 

In the back of the cabin, Maggie had discovered a single large bunk built into the wall. Looking in the drawers, she found several changes of clothes, but the only ones that weren’t clearly alien lingerie were monochrome tunics clearly cut for someone much larger than herself. Shrugging, Maggie put one on anyway and picked out a set for Alex too, heading back to the cockpit.

“Hey, nerd, I got some clothes for you,” Maggie said as she sat back down in the copilot chair.

“Thanks,” Alex said as she robotically grabbed the tunic without looking at Maggie, continuing to scowl at a series of Kryptonese symbols as she quickly pulled it on before looking down in surprise. “Huh.”

“I figured black was more your color than pastel green,” Maggie said with a smirk as Alex smiled back at her as she pulled it down to its full length.

“Well, you guessed right. How’s the food situation look?” Alex asked.

“The ship has some kind of food generators. We should be fine for however long it takes, assuming this tin can holds together,” Maggie said as she decided to spare Alex the details of that particular system. “There’s even a bed, too. We’ll be flying in style.”

“Not in these clothes,” Alex said with a small grin. 

“Yeah, on me maybe. Pretty sure you could make anything look good,” Maggie said with a grin.

“Flirt,” Alex said.

“I’ve been called worse,” Maggie said with a shrug. “How’s the calculations coming?”

“I’m still working out how to get back to earth, but I’ve figured out a few things. I know where we are, that this ship has a faster than light drive, and that Earth is only couple hundred light years away, which means that as long as I don’t drive us into a black hole or something we should be able to fly home.”

“Danvers, that’s great!” Maggie said with a smile. “Why the long face?”

“I have no idea what I’m doing here, and there isn’t a tone of room for error. What if I mess up and we drop out light speed at pluto? That’s really close to the sun on a cosmic scale, but it would take us over a decade to get to earth even at the super-fast sub light speeds this thing can reach. And that’s just from a fraction of a percent error,” Alex said. “Add to that I’m trying to read this in a language that’s only tangentially related to a language I’m barely literate in, and this whole thing starts to get dicey fast.”

“Then take your time. Like I said, we can wait here pretty much forever,” Maggie said as she wrapped her arms around the tense redhead’s shoulders. 

“What if they’re following us from a secondary base?” Alex asked.

“Then maybe they’ll find us. But there’s no sense is helping them off us by flying into a black hole,” Maggie said.

“You’re right,” Alex said with a small smile. “Let’s figure this out.”

The next several hours Maggie felt almost vestigial as she watched Alex feverishly scroll through lists. Every once in a while, Alex would hand her a hastily scribbled math formula for her to work out long hand, but Maggie suspected that Alex she wasn’t saving her brilliant girlfriend much time by crunching the numbers. It did, however, give her something to do, and she was grateful to Alex for including her.

By the third time Alex stifled a yawn several hours later, however, Maggie realized that there was another way she could contribute. Getting up from where she had several dozen sheets of plasticky Daxamite paper spread out in front of her, she let her hands fall lightly onto Alex’s shoulders.

“I think you’re going to be a lot less likely to steer us into a black hole if you’re rested. We both haven’t slept in over a day.”

“I know,” Alex said as she swayed groggily despite herself. “But we’re not safe yet…”

“Alex, flying a spaceship while you’re impaired is not going to make us safer,” Maggie said as she gently pulled the rapidly crashing red head out of her seat and back towards the large bed behind her.

“What’re you gonna do, give me a ticket?” Alex asked as Maggie helped her take off the tunic and unwind the long wrap from around her chest.

“Might just let you off with a warning this time,” Maggie said as she helped Alex’s scarred body to lay down onto the bed, gently wrapping an arm around her torso as she spooned the tiger striped flesh. “You’ll crack it tomorrow.”

Alex answered with a light snore, and Maggie smiled to herself as she curled up behind Alex. 

“Good night, my love,” Maggie whispered before she let her own heavy lids fall shut, surrendering herself to sleep. 

Maggie awoke from the form beneath her stirring to wakefulness. Maggie slithered a hand up to Alex’s chest as she pressed a small kiss behind her girlfriend’s ear. Alex smiled and pushed her back against Maggie, inviting the shorter woman to subtly push her hips into Alex’s athletic ass.

“Good morning,” Maggie said groggily as she let her fingertips trace across the raised bumps so recently etched into Alex’s skin. 

“Good morning,” Alex said as she reached behind her and let a warm palm trail down Maggie’s hip to the back of her thigh.

“Should have figured you’d be the kind of girl to wake up thirsty,” Maggie murmured into Alex’s ear as she moved her fingers with greater purpose, eliciting a delightful shudder in the redhead.

“Maggie,” Alex said pleadingly. After several confused seconds of trying to figure out what Alex was asking her for, Maggie’s brain finally woke up fully. 

“Shit, I’m sorry, I kind of forgot that we actually haven’t had sex yet,” Maggie said. When she tried to pull her hand away from Alex’s solar plexus, however, Alex caught Maggie’s hand in her own. Rolling over to face her, Alex held Maggie in an indescribably vulnerable face.

“Hey, I- I don’t mind,” Alex said. “Your hand feels good. It’s not like you haven’t seen me naked.”

“You don’t have to force yourself to do anything you don’t want to, Alex,” Maggie said as she let her hand settle back onto Alex’s abs. “If you’re not comfortable…”

“It’s not that,” Alex said with shaky confidence. “You make me feel comfortable in a way no one ever has.”

“Then what’s up?” Maggie asked.

“It’s um. When you touch me, I can feel the scars,” Alex said. “And it’s hard to feel like I’m here, with you. Like I’m not broken.”

“Alex,” Maggie said in concern as she let her thumb brush over Alex’s cheek, carefully avoiding the angry white line that ran perpendicular down her face.

“I know, it’s stupid, it’s just how the nerves feel and it’s all in my head and I don’t want you to think that I don’t really, really want to have your hands on me right now,” Alex said in a huff.

“Hey. It’s not stupid,” Maggie said. “For a gal who introduced herself to me by threatening to rip out my throat, you’ve made some real mental health progress.”

Alex rewarded Maggie with an amused grunt.

“Guess I have,” Alex said with a smile. “I just don’t like that there’s something with me that could put something between us.”

“Bodies are hard. I don’t know that I’ve met a woman yet who didn’t have some kind of issue with her body. It doesn’t have to control you, and it certainly isn’t going to stop you from having a full relationship,” Maggie said. “No matter how long it takes for you to feel like yourself, I’ll be here, Danvers.”

“I just, I don’t like it. I’m ready now, finally, to have something I haven’t ever had with someone,” Alex said.

“Have you never… ?” Maggie asked. 

“Not in a way that meant anything,” Alex said. “Not for lack of trying.”

Maggie’s face scrunched in thought for second.

“Look, you’ve treated patients, right? At the DEO?” Maggie asked. 

“Yeah,” Alex said.

“What would you tell them if they’d been through the hell that you’ve been through the last six months?” Maggie asked.

“That there where going to be mental and physical trauma that was going to take a long time to heal, and that they should be patient with however long that takes,” Alex said as she let out a huff. “Physician heal thyself, right? That’s your point?”

“Pretty much that, yeah,” Maggie said as she cocked her head to the side. “You’re a badass Danvers, I think you’ve shown that. But you’re not invincible. And that’s ok.”

Alex chuckled.

“You’re right. But this? This is something I want to heal first,” Alex said with a small smile. “I’ve never had someone who made me feel more whole, who I didn’t have to feel responsible for before. You’re my sunlight, Maggie Sawyer.”

“You a plant now?” Maggie said with a smile. “I’m always down to add to my Bonsai tree collection.”

“Yeah, I guess I am,” Alex said with a smile. “Bonsai trees, huh?”

“Hey, I’m allowed to have depths, Danvers,” Maggie said.

“I just wouldn’t have guessed. It makes sense, though,” Alex said with a smile. “Can we just cuddle for a few minutes?”

“I’d love to Danvers,” Maggie said with a smile.

A few minutes turned into over an hour, as Maggie and Alex talked about everything and nothing. Maggie kept her hands gently laying on Alex’s back, feeling the tense muscles slowly relax under her as she punctuated her sentences with lazy kisses. By the time Alex’s stomach started grumbling, Alex was almost as relaxed under her hands as she normally was.

“You said we had plenty of food?” Alex asked. 

“Yep. I don’t know what it is, but let’s try to figure out how to work the machine before you starve to death,” Maggie joked.

Breakfast featured incredibly bland food presented in an incredibly intricate manner, meaning it was probably supposed to be some kind of delicacy. Maggie barely noticed the lack of taste as she got to see Alex truly relax for the first time. She was even rewarded with a few unguarded grins. She couldn’t wait to see more.

Eventually, they turned their attentions to the problem of navigation. Alex worked on the computer interface and Maggie largely talking through the issues Alex was stuck on as a sounding board. After several frustrating hours, Alex had been able to input several courses into the navigational computer that were at least in the general neighborhood of Earth.

“Congratulations, we’ve hit the Kuiper belt,” Alex said sarcastically as she sat back in her chair in defeat.

“Hey, we’ve hit the solar system twice in a row now. I think we’re getting somewhere,” Maggie said.

“Last flight path ended up with us being crushed in Neptune’s gravity well,” Alex said.

“Yeah, but we hit it,” Maggie said. “That’s pretty good astronomically.”

“You’re right,” Alex said. “It’s just disheartening, you know?”

“Come on, take a break for dinner,” Maggie said. “Even geniuses need to eat.”

“Why, you know a place?” Alex asked with a deadpan, breaking face once Maggie smiled back at her.

“Think I might know a spot,” Maggie said as she felt her dimples pop.

“Well, lead the way,” Alex said with a smile.

Dinner passed quickly, and after several more hours of work, Maggie managed to convince Alex to come to bed. She still tensed under Maggie’s touches, but she was relaxing faster and faster each time. By the time Maggie was drifting off to sleep, she thought she saw a glint in Alex’s eye and a certain deep murmur in her voice. Maggie contented herself with how completely relaxed Alex was with her arms around her waist as the duo drifted off.


	8. Just Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For full literary effect, listen to the Nervous Eater's song of the same name as you read this. Or don't, whatever

When Maggie woke, she heard low pitched growling ominously echo throughout the. For half a heartbeat, Maggie could have sworn that a large dog had somehow slipped onboard while they had been asleep. However, as the next growl came from the restless woman she was sharing a bed with, Maggie understood what was happening.

Alex twitched violently in her sleep, an angry growl coming from her lips. Maggie tried to gently shake her awake. Suddenly, Alex’s eyes opened wide as she lunged forward with a snarl at an invisible assailant. Turning her head around in confusion, Alex’s heavy breathing filled the space a second before Maggie’s soft reassurances began to gently flow over them.

As Alex’s eyes slowly began to dilate down to their normal size, her breathing turned to high pitched whimpers as she curled in on herself. Maggie silently slipped one arm around Alex, and then another as she slowly pulled the dissociating woman onto her chest. They sat in the quiet darkness until Alex’s keening whimpers turned to sobs. Maggie simply held her to her chest until the wracking sobs petered out into silence.

“Thanks,” Alex whispered hoarsely into Maggie’s chest.

“No thanks needed, Danvers,” Maggie said as she placed a kiss on the top of Alex’s head. “Want to get cleaned up?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think I do,” Alex said with a nod. 

Alex was quiet as the pair showered together in the tiny compartment in the back of the ship, staying in physical contact with Maggie the entire time. As they ate their bland breakfast, the murmured conversation seemed to slowly lift the fog of Alex’s nightmares from the ship. 

The day flew by as they spent the vast majority of it continuing to calculate the best trajectory. Eventually Maggie finally managed to get Alex to eat again. Alex mindlessly shoveled food into her mouth, half leaning against Maggie as they sat on the floor in a position reminiscent of their time under Roulette’s thumb. She finally broke the comfortable silence that had fallen between them.

“I uh, kind of need to say some things that I’ve been thinking about, but that I haven’t really been able to put together,” Alex said.

“Well, don’t leave me in suspense,” Maggie said with a small smile.

“Down on the planet… Kara is why I stayed alive. At least at first. I’ve always been there for her. But without you, without you I wouldn’t have made it off that rock. I wouldn’t have found myself. So thank you. For being here,” Alex said, and she can feel tears slipping down the sides of her face, before she let out a short, barking laugh. “It still doesn’t feel real.”

“I know what you mean,” Maggie said before she pressed a kiss Alex’s hair. “But it will. Eventually. And I’m always going to be here for you, Alex.”

“I know. I just don’t want you to have to take care of me. It isn’t fair,” Alex said as she looked away from Maggie.

“Something on your mind?” Maggie asked softly.

“Kind of. It’s stupid considering everything else that’s going on,” Alex said. “We should really be focused on getting the ship to FTL without killing ourselves.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure repression and ignoring your emotions is what most shrinks recommend,” Maggie said with a smile. “I’m sure you won’t feel better after talking about it.”

“And I’m not sure if you’re trying to make fun of me or help me,” Alex said in mock annoyance.

“Look, we just escaped Thundermoon. Whatever is bothering you, I’m pretty sure we can work it out,” Maggie said.

Alex sighed.

“We’re two grown, adult women,” Alex said.

“Yes,” Maggie said unsurely.

“We, or at least I, know that the, well, physical side of a relationship can be pretty important, and I’m pretty sure it’s important to you to. And that’s fine! That’s good! That’s perfectly healthy! Sex is, sex is something most people want, including me, especially in a relationship, like, a romantic one,” Alex said.

“This is possibly the least smooth method of seduction I’ve ever experienced, Danvers,” Maggie said, causing Alex to turn a bright shade of red. 

“That is not-“ Alex started before her speech degenerated into a series of splutters. 

“Look, Danvers, you’re a baby gay. I get it. Sex is kind of scary,” Maggie said. “I’ll wait as long as you need to feel comfortable with it.”

“It’s not the idea of sex, it’s… I’m 29 and I’ve never been good with intimacy. Touching. And I don’t want you to wait around for me to finally feel comfortable in my own skin again and be disappointed,” Alex said.

“Look, I’m not going to tell you that this isn’t scary. Because you’re going through a hell of a lot of stuff all at once, some of which I can only imagine. But… Alex, I’m always going to be there for you, because you’re worth it. You deserve happiness. I’ve fucked up enough good things in my life to know that I don’t want to fuck this one up. I can’t. I couldn’t do that to you. Not after everything,” Maggie said.

“Sounds like I’m not the only one with something on her mind,” Alex said.

“Look, Danvers, it’s nothing. This is about you right now,” Maggie said.

“If I were a more spiteful person I would parrot some words about repressing emotions,” Alex said.

“It’s fine,” Maggie said.

“Maggie,” Alex said.

“I uh. I kind of fuck up relationships. A lot,” Maggie said as she studied the suddenly interesting wall. “I cut and run.”

“You’re not planning on doing that, are you?” Alex asked cautiously.

“No! Of course not,” Maggie said. 

“Then what’s the problem?” Alex asked.

“I cheated on my last girlfriend,” Maggie blurted out. 

“Oh,” Alex said.

“It was the reason I started working so many hours on the Roulette case, actually. The whole reason I’m here is because I fuck things up. Look, I’m going to be honest: I don’t deserve you. Maybe hearing you talk like I’m doing you some kind of favor got to me,” Maggie said with a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tell you this until we were all the way home. Just one more thing for you to deal with.”

“Maggie,” Alex said as she guided Maggie’s agitated hands to her lap. “How long have you been sitting on this? What about ride or die?”

“I um, I didn’t think we were going to make it out alive. More specifically, I didn’t think I was going to make it. If I was going to die, once you developed feelings for me then you knowing what a shitty person I am would only slow you down. Make you think, maybe hesitate. An extra thing to think about. And maybe I liked the way that you looked at me. Maybe it made me feel like I was a better person than I’ve felt like in a while,” Maggie said. “Look, this is just how I am. I’m sorry.”

“Loyal and self-sacrificing?” Alex asked.

“Self-serving and deceitful,” Maggie said.

“Hey, you’re not those things,” Alex said as she searched out Maggie’s eyes.

“Danvers, I just told you that I-” Maggie started.

“Maggie. The woman I know is kind, and compassionate, and warm. I don’t care what you did in your past. It’s not like I’m not in need of forgiveness for things I’ve done,” Alex said. “You know what one of the hardest parts of being on that rock was for me?”

“What?” Maggie asked as she shoved tears down.

“That I thought I was never going to see my family again. You had to deal with that as a certainty at 14,” Alex said softly. “And I think maybe you’re scared of feeling that way again, and you push people away before they can let you down.”

“Like I said, it’s just the way that I am,” Maggie said, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice.

“No. The way you are, Maggie? It’s refusing to actually hurt someone when it could have gotten you killed. It’s helping me feel safe enough for the first time in months to come down from being Vulpes. It’s thinking of others before you ever think of yourself,” Alex said. “You’re a good person, Maggie, and you’re not going to convince me otherwise. You said you were going to wait for as long as it took for me to heal? I can do the same thing for you.”

“I lied to you,” Maggie said as she felt hot tears slip down her cheeks.

Alex looked into her eyes with an understanding that made Maggie want to cover herself even though she was already wearing clothes.

“And I forgive you. Heal together with me?” Alex asked.

Maggie felt the first sob come out her throat more than she heard it. As Alex wrapped her up in her arms, Maggie could only nod to show that she wanted to say yes.

It took Maggie what felt like forever to cry herself out, to let out everything she had been holding back for years. But she did finally stop long enough to wipe away her tears with the back of her arm and chuckle wryly.

“Yeah, you’re clearly terrible at intimacy, Danvers,” Maggie said as Alex’s thumb rubbed her back comfortingly. “Just the worst. Don’t feel better at all.”

“I warned you,” Alex said as she held back her own sniffle.

“Didn’t this conversation start with me trying to comfort you?” Maggie asked. 

“You can make it up to me later,” Alex said.

“Yeah? What did you have in mind?” Maggie asked.

“You’ll just have to see,” Alex said before she kissed Maggie deeply.

After several intense minutes of basking in Alex’s attention, Maggie pulled back slightly.

“We should probably get this ship moving at some point,” Maggie said ruefully.

“I suppose,” Alex said with a tinge of disappointment in her voice. “Raincheck?”

“You bet your ass, Danvers,” Maggie said with a grin through her puffy eyes. “You get started, I’m going to go clean up.”

Several hours of calculations later, and Maggie was starting to hit her limit. As she carried the last negative sign in the equation Alex had given her, she looked up.

“That’s it. That’s the best I can do,” Alex said wearily as she flopped back in her chair. “This is the only course back to the earth that doesn’t drop us beyond Saturn or give an error message that says we become ‘un-materials,’ whatever that is.”

“Well, I can’t find any errors in your math,” Maggie said as she looked up from the complex series of calculations in front of her. “At least, from what I understand of this.”

“Well, then this is it,” Alex said tightly. “Once I pull this lever, we’ll either be on Earth in 72 hours or we’ll be splattered all over some space rocks.”

Alex’s hand hovered over the lever, her breathing the only thing betraying her nerves in the slightest. Maggie stood up and reached over Alex’s shoulder, gently placed her hand over the top of her lover’s and pressing the redhead’s hand onto the lever. Moments later, Maggie was staring into Alex’s large doe eyes as she instinctively brushed a strand of hair out of Alex’s eyes. 

“Come on, Danvers. You’re the smartest person I know. We’ve checked and double checked with the computer for the last three days. If I would want anyone to fly me home, it would be you,” Maggie said reassuringly. “Let’s end this, one way or another.”

“Yeah. Yeah, let’s do this,” Alex said as her eyebrows knit together. “On three.”

“One. Two,” Maggie counted, and then smoothly pulled the lever back with Alex. 

Immediately after they pulled the lever, the shipped started humming louder and louder as the stars around them started to streak, until suddenly their ship was sucked into a what appeared to be a tube of softly shimmering white light. 

“Wow,” Maggie said.

“Wow,” Alex repeated as she looked around. “I guess now we just wait to see if I just killed us both.”

“I guess all there is to do now is wait, in a totally private space, where any moment could be our last, and without any form of entertainment, with an incredibly attractive woman,” Maggie said as she let her fingertips ghost over Alex’s collarbone, earning her a shudder from the redhead. 

Alex shuddered under Maggie’s skilled touch. 

“You seem like you have an idea on how to pass the time,” Alex said as she struggled to keep her breathing steady. 

“I have one or two ideas I’ve been thinking about,” Maggie said with a smirk as she pulled Alex out of the chair and back towards the bed. “The first one involves kissing you, if that’s alright.”

“I’m not really opposed to the idea,” Alex said.

Maggie cupped the sides of Alex’s jaw and kissed her deeply. They had kissed before, but Alex felt lost in the intensity of the kiss as Maggie deepened her exploration of Alex’s lips. She felt fire curl low in her belly, burning so much more insistently than she had ever thought possible. As Maggie pushed her back down onto the bed, Alex felt cold sweat break out as her skin prickled. A moment later, Maggie pulled back.

“Hey, you kind of froze up,” Maggie said softly.

“I’m sorry,” Alex managed to whisper.

“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, Alex,” Maggie said. “I just thought you were giving me a go ahead earlier.”

“I was,” Alex said as she let herself breath in Maggie’s scent. “I want this.”

“Ok. But I’m stopping if you seem like you’re uncomfortable,” Maggie said with a raised eyebrow.

Alex pulled her back down into a kiss.

It was strange. Alex felt out of touch with her body as she pulled off the alien tunic she was wearing, letting the strange prickles from the scars on her skin brush against Maggie. Maggie moved her hands over her body skillfully, her clever fingers finding the sensitive areas behind her ears and the dip of her pelvic bone and the side of her ribs.

Alex had never quite felt this way; never been touched like this before, but the dance that was clearly familiar to the detective. The way her breath was taken away from how good Maggie’s hands felt, which was new, but something darker clawed at the back of her mind. As Maggie caressed the crisscrossing patterns on her body and Alex felt her fight-calloused hands drift over Maggie’s body, her mind was still chained to that post in the arena being beaten senseless by a strip of leather. Her chest tightened with the memory.

But as she let herself breath in Maggie’s comforting scent and feel her warm body pressing into hers, Alex found she could focus on something other than the foreignness of her feelings. She focused on the hot, wet point of Maggie’s mouth on her neck, the reassurance that came from the Maggie’s thigh anchored between her legs, and the molten heat of Maggie’s core pressing into her hip that was leaving wet trails over her skin.

Alex surprised herself by sounds that came out her completely unbidden. Her moans spurred Maggie on, her hands grasping and rubbing and pinching across Alex’s body. The deep shudders of desire she felt course through her were nothing like her previous experiences with intimacy. She didn’t have to think about moving, about responding. It felt like letting go to Maggie’s touch. 

It almost reminded her of letting Vulpes take over her mind, of giving way to something deeper and more animalistic than she had ever thought possible. But Vulpes was all rage and violence and ice, and this was the opposite of that in every conceivable way. Maggie sucking on her neck, her collarbone, and her breast felt loving and safe and warm. 

Alex groaned in pleasure as an almost burning warmth in her core flowed effortlessly down her body. Rolling her head back, she laced her fingers though Maggie’s hair when the other woman kissed lower and lower, down past her naval. Alex only quieted when Maggie stopped to look Alex in the eyes.

“This alright?” Maggie asked huskily.

“Yes. Very alright,” Alex said tightly, the wound spring in her chest not allowing her to say more.

Maggie unwound that spring with long, slow strokes of her tongue, until Alex came all the way apart in a cry of ecstasy.

Hours later, the pair lay tangled in a sweaty mess on the bed. From where she lay curled up on Maggie’s shoulder, Alex let out a small chuckle.

“Something funny, Danvers?” Maggie murmured sleepily.

“I just… I think I get the big deal with sex now,” Alex said.

“And you’re sure this is the first time you’ve had sex with a woman? Because you seemed very, uh, knowledgeable,” Maggie said with a small smirk.

“I might have… had some thoughts about it. Before I met you,” Alex said sheepishly.

“Time well spent, apparently,” Maggie as she pulled Alex into a soft embrace from behind. “Speaking of which, it’s time for bed.”

“You’re pretty confident I’m a little spoon, aren’t you?” Alex murmured as Maggie’s arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her closer.

“Please. You’re not that hard to read, Danvers,” Maggie said. “Night.”

“Night,” Alex said softly.

As she drifted off, Alex finally managed to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.


	9. Regicidal Reunions

The ship dropped out of hyperspace with little fanfare, normal space suddenly snapping back into view through the window. 

“Well, I guess we didn’t die,” Maggie said as she pointed at the large blue planet that had come into view.

“Don’t jinx it,” Alex muttered.

“Come on, Danvers, we just flew across the universe in a stolen space ship. I know you have that stone-cold dyke thing going on, but even you can’t be that unrelentingly serious,” Maggie said.

“Well, when we’re on the ground, I might crack a smile,” Alex said.

A flashing light interrupted their conversation.

“We’re getting a transmission,” Maggie said. 

Alex frowned. 

“Answer it,” She said. 

Maggie punched several buttons and a bearded face popped up onto the view screen. Maggie noticed Alex freeze up at the sight from her position off screen, but Maggie had to answer.

“Hello. Who are you?” Maggie asked.

“I’m Mon EL, prince of Daxam. If you have to ask who I am, I know you’re not a Daxamite. So who did you steal that ship from?” The man asked imperiously. 

“Slavers,” Maggie answered evenly. “I escaped from them with a friend off of a moon recently.”

“Oh? I heard from some well-connected friends that there was a commotion on a popular gladiator moon, and that a slave named Vulpes had escaped,” Mon El probed. “You wouldn’t happen to know where she went, would you?”

“I don’t know any Vulpes. What kind of name is that?” Maggie asked as she stalled for time. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Alex scribbling a note on a piece of paper.

“Just a fun nickname, I suppose. Her real name is Alex Danvers. She’s someone I lost track of at one point. We’re friends, we were on a mission together, and if I could get her back her sister would really appreciate it,” Mon El said.

“If you knew where she was, why not go get her yourself?” Maggie asked.

“It was in a system with a red sun. Nothing anyone could do,” Mon El said with a shrug.

“I see,” Maggie said as Alex slid a piece of paper over to her. “I know Alex, we escaped together. Meet me at 34.0522° N, 118.2437° W, and we can talk more? It’s a park where I can land this thing a bit discretely. I’m sure the feds will appreciate if everyone isn’t gawking.”

“Yeah, secluded is good for government work,” Mon El said with a smile. “See you in a few hours.”

Maggie ended the transmission.

“So that was the frat boy?” Maggie asked.

“Yep,” Alex said. 

“You want to tell me why we’re meeting him in literally the perfect place to bump me off and cover up his tracks?” Maggie asked.

“Because it will make him feel safe. That’s going to make him vulnerable,” Alex said with a grim smile. “That and I have a plan.”

“Does this plan involve calling the DEO?” Maggie asked.

“I don’t think the DEO has a subspace transmitter, and I can’t figure out how to broadcast in a way they could pick up on without also alerting Mon El. He can do too much damage if he sees something coming,” Alex said. “Maybe if I had a direct line to J’onn or Kara or the president, I could do something. But as it is, he has to much power if we don’t put him down discretely.”

Maggie nodded. 

“Maniacal sociopath with god level powers, no lead anywhere on this ship, and no back up,” Maggie said. “What could go wrong?”

Several hours later, after a surprisingly easy reentry that had Maggie marveling at the possibilities for future space travel, the ship had landed successfully in the park that Alex had specified. Taking several deep breaths, Maggie opened the door and lowered the ramp.

“Hey, hi, hello,” Mon-el called out to Maggie as he strode up the ramp before pausing to give Maggie a lurid once over. “You’re not quite the little green men us at the FBI expected.”

“I’m from Nebraska, I only work in space,” Maggie said with an unamused grin.

“Never been to that planet,” Mon-el said dismissively. “So, you said you knew Alex Danvers? I’m just curious, you know, cause I’m dating her sister, and she’s been really sad since she thought Alex died, and also mad at me, which is unfair, but if she escaped I can fix both of those things.”

“And Alex would be alive,” Maggie said slowly.

“Oh, yeah, that too,” Mon-el said quickly before trying to look of Maggie’s shoulder. “You said she was with you? Where was she?”

“We escaped in separate ships,” Maggie said.

“Oh, wow, that’s great! Congratulations,” Mon-el said with enthusiasm that didn’t quite hide the sharpness in his voice. “When is she showing up? Also, where?”

“I don’t know. We couldn’t figure out how to work the radios,” Maggie said.

Mon El’s eyes narrowed.

“What all did she tell you, uh, about me? We worked together, so I was just wondering,” Mon El asked.

“Nothing much, honestly,” Maggie said cryptically. 

“Well, I tried to do this the easy way,” Mon-el muttered under his breath before his eyes fired a stream of blue energy at Maggie. Seeing the shot go low and off center, Maggie tried to dive into the ship so as to avoid a better aimed shot, only to gasp in pain as her leg crumpled uselessly beneath her. Looking down in horror, Maggie realized that Mon-el had fired two eye beams directly through her left leg, instantly cauterizing the wound from the intense heat even as it cut through enough of the muscle to make it impossible to stand. 

Mon-El’s eyes began to glow red with energy as he strode towards Maggie. 

“I need to know specifics. When is she going to be here? What ship is she coming in? Where is she right now?” Mon-El asked in hushed impatience. 

A single gunshot broke the early morning stillness.

Mon-el stiffened instantly, his eye beams harmlessly scorching the ground next to Maggie as she instinctively flinched away from the deadly energy blasts. As he fell to the ground, the Daxamite prince let out a pained gurgle as he turned around as he searched for his assailant, barely strong enough to stand. 

“You,” Mon-El said in a disbelieving tone as he looked towards the shooter.

“You disgust me,” Alex said as she strode forward, emptying the clip into Mon-El’s body with a look that Maggie had never seen on Alex’s face before. 

In the arena Alex had always been terrifyingly cold, her snarls and bites calculated for maximum intimidation and lethality. However, the unrestrained violence Maggie saw in each loud retort of the handgun was white hot as the wrath written on her face. This was an Alex Danvers who was out of control with rage. 

Tossing aside the gun, Alex fell on the bleeding royal and let loose savage blows rain down on his body with no regard for her own defense, earning her several painful looking body blows that even from a severely weakened Daxamite had to have hurt. Alex let out a scream of pent-up rage as she struck the dying man again and again with her fist, having seemingly forgotten the combinations she had used so effectively in the arena.

Wincing with effort, Maggie picked herself up and began crawling down towards where Alex was hitting a now unmoving man over and over, her fist coming back bloodier each time. Before Maggie could reach Alex, a red and blonde blur crashed into the ground behind Alex, and to Maggie’s brief surprise a disheveled Super Girl stood up from the small impact crater she had created.

“Alex? But you’re-” Super Girl said. “You killed Mon-El!”

Alex turned around and roared, causing Super Girl to flinch backwards as her hand flew to her mouth.

“What are you?” the super hero whispered as tears sprang from her eyes. Alex shrank back from the blonde, her eyes suddenly down cast. 

Maggie could see black edge around her vision even as she tried to propel herself forward to try to get Alex to calm down even as she heard sirens in the distance. As Maggie felt herself start to slip from consciousness, she saw Alex crouch warily between herself and Super Girl as she heard sirens in the distance.

When she awoke, Maggie could tell she was in what looked like a hospital. Instantly, she could tell she wasn’t in a real hospital. The all concrete architecture was completely wrong for National City General. Turning her head, she found herself looking into the stern eyes of a black man in a well fitted polo shirt, flanked on either side by a medical doctor and Super Girl. 

“Where’s Alex?” Maggie asked groggily as she tried to sit up only to hear a metallic clink as she moved her arm. “What the hell is this place?”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll be asking the questions,” the man said as he crossed his arms in front of his chest in a way that was eerily familiar. 

“Why am I restrained?” Maggie asked angrily as she yanked ineffectually at the handcuff on her wrist. 

“We don’t know who you are yet. We’ve had some bad experiences being too trusting in the past,” the man said. “That and you’re the only person that knows what’s wrong with Agent Danvers.”

Maggie cocked her head to the side, her fuzzy brain adding up the situation.

“You’re the DEO, Alex is stuck in Vulpes mode, and you think I’m somehow responsible,” Maggie said, resulting in uneasy glances amongst the three figures. “Which means Alex is either sedated or in a holding cell, but I’m going to guess holding cell since by the looks of things I’d be able to see her if she was sedated.”

“And what do you think we should do?” The man asked.

“I think you should let me into whatever cage you have her locked up in so I can calm her down,” Maggie said with a scowl. “Because if whatever bad ideas you’ve had so far had worked, Alex would be here right now.”

“Why should we trust you? You could have done this to her,” Super Girl said with her arms resting on her hips somewhat unnaturally, almost as if she was mimicking someone familiar. Someone who would join a clandestine government alien agency to protect her, and who would be able to identify Alex on sight.

“Because I have been through hell with your sister, and I need to bring her home. All the way,” Maggie said with steel in her voice as both Kara and J’onn reacted with surprise at Maggie’s words.

“Alex told you?” Kara asked. 

“Not in so many words, but you instantly recognized Alex and it makes sense. I couldn’t figure out why someone like Alex would join an organization like the DEO, but protecting her adopted alien sister? That would be at the top of her list. Well, that and the hands on your hips pose,” Maggie said, holding up her handcuffed hand. “Now can I ditch the jewelry and go see Alex?”

Alex’s boss seemed thoughtful for a moment before raising an eyebrow.

“There’s also the matter of the man that Agent Danvers shot,” Alex’s boss said. “He’s been working with us just like Super Girl has been.”

“He was trying to kill her, and me, to cover up how he left Alex and her team to die on an alien moon,” Maggie said as her eyebrows knit into a frown. “Alex knew about a DEO weapons cache in the park and… I’m going to assume she slipped into her alternate personality.”

“Alternate personality?” Alex’s boss asked.

“It was her way of coping with the situation she was in,” Maggie said quietly. 

“J’onn, that would explain why you couldn’t read her mind earlier, and why Alex was attacking us! She thought we were trying to hurt Maggie,” Kara said with a frown. “Mon-El must have been hypnotized. Or something.”

“It all seems far-fetched, but she is telling the truth,” J’onn said with a frown. 

“You can read minds?” Maggie asked.

“Usually,” J’onn said as he frowned in thought before finally reaching over to uncuff her. “All right. If you can help Agent Danvers, and she can verify your story, you will have the full gratitude of the DEO and myself.”

“Not really my motivation, but you’re welcome, I guess,” Maggie said with a shrug as she tested her now heavily bandaged leg before wincing in pain.

“You’re going to need several months of physical therapy before you can use that leg again,” said the doctor with ‘Hamilton’ stitched on her lab coat.

“Then bring me some crutches before I hop my way out of here,” Maggie gritted out. 

Several minutes later, with Maggie was hobbling along as fast as she could as Director Jonzz and Kara led her down several hallways towards Alex cell.

“I’m still confused as to what happened to Alex,” Kara said.

“That makes three of us, including Alex,” Maggie said with a grim smile.

“You mentioned a name before, Vulpes? That’s Latin for Fox, isn’t it?” J’onn asked. 

“I didn’t know you spoke Latin,” Kara said.

“It helps when you want to fake legalese or impress people at parties,” J’onn said with a perfectly straight face. “But my question remains.”

“Vulpes is the name our captors gave to her,” Maggie said quietly. “We were on a moon run like some kind of gladiatorial games. Fights to the death, blood and sand, that kind of thing, for a gangster called Roulette. She has international, and apparently interplanetary, criminal connections. I was abducted for running an investigation into her on Earth. I met her in her cell. She was a star attraction, given her DEO training and, well, the fact that she’s Alex.”

“Oh my Rao,” Kara muttered in a horrified whisper. “Did they… make her kill people?”

“Yes,” Maggie said quietly, as she schooled her face to not show emotion.

“You’re a cop? You didn’t ping in our database,” J’onn asked suspiciously as a short, frenetic man jogged up to them.

“Because she’s dead. Sorry, you’re dead. Well, legally,” the man said, speaking first to J’onn and then Maggie. “Hi, I’m Winn. Also, meet Detective Maggie Sawyer of the NCPD.”

“That’s me,” Maggie said. “A lifetime ago, apparently.”

“None of this explains why Agent Danvers is stuck in her alternate personality,” Director Jonzz said.

“Alex made her alternate personality to cope with what she had to do to survive. Basically, given the right triggers, she falls into berserker mode. Killing Mon El and seeing me injured must have triggered that, and I can’t imagine having her sister see her fall wouldn’t be additionally traumatic,” Maggie said as they approached a door with a several security locks on it. 

J’onn unlocked the door but hesitated before he opened it.

“And you’re sure you can help?” J’onn asked.

“Positive,” Maggie said with a reassuring smile. “She’s only bit me the one time.”

“She bit you?” Kara asked incredulously as Maggie swung herself into an octagon shaped room with a glass cage in the middle. 

Alex was still wearing her gladiatorial clothes, pacing the small glass box she was contained in as shreds of her bloody Daxamite garment hung off of her.

“Alex,” Maggie said with a soft smile as she swung herself towards the door of the cage. “Open the door, Director.”

“Are you sure?” J’onn asked as Alex let out growl as she angrily pushed up against the glass. 

“Hey, hey, I’m here,” Maggie murmured softly to Alex as she awkwardly leaned against the glass next to Alex. “Yes. Do it.”

With a small hiss, the door next to them slid open. In one move almost too fast for her to register, Alex had slipped out of the door like a snake and had Maggie wrapped in her arms, letting out small whimpers.

“It’s ok Alex, it’s ok, I’m here,” Maggie said softly as she leaned one of the crutches up against the side of the cage and slipped an arm around the DEO agent’s waist. Alex’s whimpers slowly trailed off, and Maggie didn’t need to see Alex’s eyes to know that her pupils were dilating back to a normal size. 

“Maggie,” Alex whispered as she closed her eyes and lightly inhaled Maggie’s scent, hiding her face in the crook of the shorter woman’s neck even as she partially supported the detective in her strong arms. 

“Alex?” Kara said across the room in a small voice that sounded less like a super hero and more like a scared 12-year-old. 

“K-Super Girl,” Alex said, only barely correcting herself as she stared in surprise at her sister and J’onn.

“I already know she’s your sister, Danvers,” Maggie said as she turned towards J’onn and Kara, grabbing her other crutch as she did so. “Don’t hold back on my account.”

“Alex!” Kara said and rushed forward, wrapping the redhead up in a bear hug with superspeed before pulling back almost as fast when Alex stiffened.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t hurt you, did I?” Kara asked with worry etched on her face. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to invade your space or anything, I don’t know how you feel with physical contact now, I didn’t mean-“

“Kara,” Alex said as she slowly pulled the Kryptonian into a hug. “Shut up and be my sister.”

“Always,” Kara said as she relaxed into the hug, as she buried her face into her sister’s shoulder as she clutched the strands of Alex’s torn clothes. 

“Alex,” J’onn said his hand over his mouth and tears just beginning to wet his cheeks. “You’re really back.”

“Yeah,” Alex said with a suddenly dry throat as Kara moved aside slightly to let J’onn enter a three-way embrace. “Yeah, it’s really me.”

“J’onn, promise me one thing?” Alex said hoarsely as tears began to stream down her own face.

“Anything,” J’onn said.

“Erase the tapes of this ever happening,” Alex said as she leaned against the two aliens’ shoulders. “No one around here should know that we’re both capable of crying.”

J’onn stifled a small chuckle as he continued to hold both Danvers sisters.

They simply held each other for several long minutes, reveling in the reunion.

“Alex, I hate to ruin this moment in any way, but what happened in the park, when you returned? Do you remember?” Kara asked as she pulled back from the hug to look Alex in the eyes.

“Mon El was going to torture Maggie until she told him where and when I was coming, then he was going to kill her and then me,” Alex said as anger flared behind her brown eyes. “He needed to clean up his loose ends.”

“Alex, what do you mean?” Kara asked as she tried to make sense of her sister’s words.

“He killed my team and he tried to kill me on Talos IV, just so that he could have you all to himself,” Alex ground out. “When he saw our ship in orbit, he tried to lure Maggie to a secluded area and kill her. Maggie convinced him to meet at a place where I knew the DEO had an emergency supply cache. It was the only way to deal with it without endangering thousands of people.”

“Alex,” Kara choked out as tears started down her face before she wrapped her sister in another hug. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know, I would never have- I didn’t- Your face, all the scars- are you all right?”

Alex didn’t react as Kara simply hugged her almost tightly enough to break her in half for several seconds before she remembered to hug back and whisper, “Ribs.”

“Right, right, I’m sorry, I make everything worse,” Kara mumbled as she broke the hug and looked away before Alex caught her hand.

“No, Kara, you don’t,” Alex said softly, her voice sounding unused to making reassuring sounds. “Mon-El did. You’re just as much a victim here. You’re my little sister. I pushed you to date him in the first place. And I missed you so damn much.”

Alex pulled Kara into a hug, letting her head rest against Kara’s chest as she felt another surge of emotions nearly topple her to floor before Kara wrapped her arms around her.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t see Mon-El for who he was, but I’m glad you’re back,” Kara said softly into Alex’s hair. “I’m glad you’re back and he isn’t.”

“Amen,” Maggie said from where she was leaning against the tank, her leg starting to ache deeply. “I only have the one spare leg, I don’t think I could afford meeting him again.”

“She has jokes,” Kara said with a pain tinged smile.

“Are you alright?” Alex said, guiltily looking down at Maggie’s heavily bandaged leg. “If I knew he was going to shoot first and ask questions later, I never would have put you in harm’s way like that.”

“I’m fine, Danvers. You couldn’t have known,” Maggie said with a nod to Kara and J’onn. “But now that I’ve proven I’m not part of an intergalactic kidnapping ring, I have a few phone calls to let everyone know that I’m past my whole being dead phase.” 

“Of course, Detective,” J’onn said as he wiped some of his drying tears away. “Agent Schott will get you the connections you need.”

“Thank you,” Maggie said as she gathered her crutch and headed for the door. 

“Maggie!” Alex called as she noticed that Maggie was headed for the door. “Don’t take off without me, alright?”

“Course not,” Maggie said. “See you around, Danvers.”

Maggie noticed the same nerdy looking man from before was waiting for her outside.

“Hey, is Alex ok? Did whatever you do work?” Winn asked nervously as he saw Maggie. 

“Yeah, she just needs some one-on-one time with Director J’onzz and Super Girl,” Maggie said with a raised eyebrow. 

Winn let out a breath she had barely noticed he had been holding.

“Oh, thank god,” he said as he looked up.

“Glad she’s ok?” Maggie asked.

“Well, duh,” Winn said. “But I’m glad for me too. I mean, Alex is scary enough when she’s just a normal killing machine, not an undead, feral killing machine.” 

“You have a good point,” Maggie said. “Alex never died, though.”

“No, she just went all Conan on an alien fighting ring. I mean, Alex has always been fit, but did you see her? She’s ripped,” Winn said in a hushed whisper. 

“Got a thing for strong women?” Maggie asked with an arched eyebrow.

“Oh, god, I didn’t mean- I mean yes, but not Alex, gah, that’s weird, and now that I’ve said it out loud Kara is going to kill me, and then Alex is going to bring me back to life and kill me again,” Winn said with a panicked look.

Maggie snorted.

“Alex was right, you are too easy,” Maggie said with a smirk.

“Of course, Alex goes into space and brings back someone else who loves to torture me,” Winn said.

“Uh, phones?” Maggie asked as Winn seemed to become lost in thought.

“Right! Right, follow me,” Winn said as he walked over to a set of pay phones as he hit several codes into the key pad. “Alright, this should act like a normal phone now, direct connection to any number in the US, courtesy of Uncle Sam.”

“Thanks,” Maggie said.

“Do you need a phone book?” Winn asked.

“I uh, I have the numbers I need memorized,” Maggie said with a tight grin. “Thanks.”

“Right. Well, I’m going to go say hi to Alex then, leave you to it. Oh! I should call James,” Winn said as he pulled out his phone even as he strode towards the room Maggie had just come from.

Maggie punched in the first number on her call list.

“Tía,” Maggie said with a ghost of smile as she practically heard her Aunt cross herself through the phone. “I heard you had a whole funeral for me, but work ran a little late. Sorry I missed it.”

After giving her aunt an abbreviated explanation for what had happened and promising to fly out to visit her by the end of the week, Maggie called her captain, who had a similarly shocked reaction. After setting up a meeting to debrief everything she had learned during her time in captivity and to help coordinate a meeting between the feds and the NCPD in order to create a task force to take down Roulette. After hanging up the phone, Maggie felt herself deflate. 

Desperately, she punched in a third number.

“Hello?” M’Gann said.

“Hey, just wanted to let my favorite bartender know I’m back from the dead,” Maggie said with a wry smile.

“I was wondering where you ran off to. Thought I lost you to another bar,” M’gann said. “Buried in casework for the last couple of weeks?”

“No I, uh, actually died,” Maggie said. 

“Well, you sound good, considering,” M’gann said.

“I’m not actually dead, I just got kidnapped and then declared legally dead and… yeah, I’m sorry, it’s already four, you’re just setting up the bar right about now,” Maggie said as she pinched the bridge of her nose. “Didn’t mean to bother you.”

“You’re not bothering me,” M’gann said. “What happened?”

“It’s a long story,” Maggie said. “I’ll be there tonight, usual time, I guess, I’ll tell you then. Just wanted to give you a heads up.”

“Maggie, talk to me,” M’gann said. “You legally died? Was there a funeral?”

“Yeah, from what I heard,” Maggie said.

“Well first off, I need to be on the call list for that kind of thing, and second off, this really sounds like the bullshit you pull where you go through a traumatic experience from work and then try to cut everyone out who could help you deal with it constructively,” M’gann said.

“Hey, I just came back to life, I think I’ve earned a least a little sympathy,” Maggie said defensively.

“Yeah, you have, and I’m going to be sure you get it. Come to the bar, tonight. Drinks are on me,” M’gann said. 

“You going soft on me?” Maggie asked.

“I let you hog the pool table, I’ve already lost this battle,” M’gann said.

“All right. See you whenever they let me out of here,” Maggie said.

“Take care of yourself, Maggie,” M’Gann said. 

“I’ll try,” Maggie said.

As she hung up the phone, she heard the door to the containment room open behind her as the occupants slowly shuffled out.

“Do you want to go home and rest?” Kara asked.

“Are you kidding me? I’ve been stuck doing so much nothing during the past six months. I haven’t had just a normal night with anyone I could talk to other than Maggie in forever,” Alex said. “If it’s not too much to ask I think I want to celebrate the fact that I’m alive and I get to see you again. I understand if you aren’t feeling up to going out tonight though, with everything around Mon El being so fresh.”

“I mean, I’m not going to lie and say I’m ok. It’s going to be a while before I’m ok. But I… went to a dark place when I thought you died,” Kara said quietly. “I tried to be strong because I knew that was what you would have wanted but I just couldn’t. You’re my yellow sun, Alex. Then I heard your voice and gunshots and… I’m just really glad you’re back. And that deserves celebrating.”

“O’Reilly’s then?” Alex asked with a small smile. 

“O’Reilly’s closed while you were gone,” Kara said.

“Wow, really?” Alex asked.

“Yep. Old man O’Reilly finally retired,” Kara said.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” Alex asked as she saw Maggie walking towards the exit.

“Oh, uh, your boss said I could go, so I was going to go….” Maggie said awkwardly.

“Where? Didn’t your Aunt move to New Mexico?” Alex asked.

“I uh, my apartment,” Maggie said lamely.

“You haven’t been evicted for, you know, dying?” Alex asked.

“That’s a good point,” Maggie said, kicking herself at the lameness of her excuse.

“Why are you trying to leave?” Alex asked as she stepped close to Maggie. 

Maggie knew instantly that the way that her chest tightened at Alex’s concerned pout meant that she was already done for. 

“Not, uh, running away. Just didn’t want to get in the way of you reconnecting with your family,” Maggie said.

“Maggie, you’re my family,” Alex said as she grabbed Maggie’s hand. “You know that, right? 

“I don’t want to make, well, readjusting, harder for you than it has to be,” Maggie said quietly as she tried her best to ignore the intense stares from what felt like half the DEO.

“Maggie, I want you in my life. I thought I was pretty clear about that,” Alex said. 

“And that’s a lot easier to say on a space ship light years away from Earth,” Maggie said. 

“You make it pretty easy to say here on Earth too,” Alex said. “Come out with us tonight?”

Maggie hesitated.

“A friend of Alex’s is a friend of mine. If it’s not too much of an imposition, can I get to know the woman that saved my sister?” Kara asked. 

Maggie desperately studied Kara’s earnestness for some sign of deception. Finding nothing but scalding gentleness, Maggie had to look away.

“To be fair, Alex did most of the saving,” she said.

“You can tell me about it over a margarita,” Kara said.

Maggie wrinkled her nose.

“Make it a Bourbon and you have a deal. I have a bad relationship with that drink,” Maggie said. 

“Wonderful. So where are we going now that O’Reilly’s is closed?” Alex asked Kara.

“I know a place,” Maggie said. “I think you’ll like it there. A bit more exotic flavor.”

As Maggie followed Alex and Kara back to her car to go raid Kara’s closet, Maggie felt a small niggle of doubt when Alex decided to ride Shotgun. But then Alex reached back absentmindedly and squeezed her hand as she got into the seat behind her, and Maggie couldn’t help the warm feeling that spread through her chest. 

Maggie sincerely hoped that the ordeal she had been through hadn’t turned her into some kind of optimist.

She couldn’t quite shake the feeling that this was going to work out.


	10. Healing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mostly a chapter to sum everything up. I hope y'all had as much fun reading this as I had writing it! And thank you for all your comments and support despite the long ass breaks in updates!

After the three had reached Kara’s apartment, Maggie found herself trying to find something that wouldn’t look completely comical on her amidst a sea of oversized clothes as she and Alex picked through the clothes Kara had kept of Alex’s.

“Really? You kept this and not any of my blazers?” Alex asked as she pulled out a ratty Stanford t-shirt.

“Hey, I felt weird snuggling a blazer,” Kara said defensively. 

“Could you wear this?” Alex asked as she handed Maggie a jean jacket.

Sliding it on, Maggie noticed that the arms actually fit.

“Yeah, I think I can rock denim for night. Why is this so much smaller than the others? Did you shrink it in the wash?” Maggie asked. 

“Uh,” Alex said.

“Oh, no, that’s from Alex’s-” Kara said.

“Laundry disaster, where I did the exact thing you said,” Alex said.

“Wait, why does it have your name written in felt pen on the tag- oh. I see how it is,” Maggie said. “You’ve handed me a child-sized jacket. From when you were a child.”

“Hey, a lot of smaller women shop in the junior’s section,” Kara said unhelpfully. 

“I am not the size of a twelve-year-old!” Maggie said indignantly, ignoring Kara’s comment as she shook the jacket at Alex.

“I mean, you are the size of at least one twelve-year-old, even if you were even tinier when you were twelve,” Alex said with a smirk.

“I’m sorry I didn’t account for your clearly malformed pituitary gland,” Maggie said. “You wonky shaped giant.”

“Tall words coming from an armrest,” Alex said. 

“Stupid giraffe-woman,” Maggie said with a frown, resisting the almost physical need to drag Alex down to her lips and kiss her. 

“Please, stop fighting,” Kara said as she flailed in the background, causing both women to turn towards her. “Alex just got back, we can be happy!”

“Kara, we’re not fighting. Remember how I was with Vicky?” Alex asked.

“Oh,” Kara said with a slight blush.

“It’s fine, Kara. I think I’m used to some tough love at this point. Did I mention Alex introduced herself by biting me?” Maggie said. 

“You bite someone one time, and they hang onto it forever,” Alex said. 

“Well, one thing I’m not going to find here is shoes,” Maggie said, pointing down to the hospital socks she had been issued at the DEO. “Think we could swing by a payless?”

“Sure,” Kara said. “I can go out to the storage locker real quick to see if there are any of Alex’s shoes buried in the stuff we weren’t sure what to do with before we go.”

As Kara walked out, Maggie turned to Alex.

“We have to talk,” Maggie said with a low voice.

“What about?” Alex asked.

“Are you going to tell your sister that we’re together?” Maggie asked.

“I um,” Alex said. “She’s been through a lot recently and I don’t want to stress her out more.”

“And it’s not stressful to you to keep something so big from her?” Maggie said.

“Yes, but I don’t think that turning her world more upside down is a good idea right now. I only have the one sister,” Alex said.

“And you haven’t had your world turned upside down?” Maggie asked.

“Look, I literally just got back. It’s not like it can’t wait,” Alex said.

“Alex, I’m telling you that it really shouldn’t wait. We’re going to go out in public tonight, and we’ll be celebrating. You want to spend the whole night not kissing, not holding hands, not even looking at each other for too long because your sister might find out that one good thing happened to you while you were gone?” Maggie said.

“She’s my sister. I’ll tell her when she’s in an emotionally stable place to hear it,” Alex said stubbornly.

“Danvers, you’re not telling her you have cancer,” Maggie said, her hand falling to her hip.

“What are you not telling me?” Kara asked as she flew in through the window.

“Jesus! Kara! Flying!” Alex said as her tone turned from shock to scolding.

“Hey, it was the back window. No one noticed,” Kara said defensively.

“I swear you’re the worst person I’ve ever seen at keeping a secret identity,” Alex said. 

“No, you’re not distracting me from whatever it is you’re not telling me by giving me a lecture,” Kara said. “I know you learned that trick from mom.”

“And now is when you decide to figure it out?” Alex muttered.

“Come on. Just tell me what’s going on,” Kara said as she grabbed at Alex’s hand. “Is it about the fights? Mon El? Are you mad at me?”

“Kara, I couldn’t be mad at you,” Alex said, her stiff back loosening.

“And you know that I could never be mad at you. Please. Just tell me,” Kara said. 

“I’ll just be in the kitchen, getting some water,” Maggie said, patting Alex on the back as she headed to the kitchen. “You’ve got this. I’ll be outside if you need me.” 

“I-” Alex started with a panicked look in her eyes. 

“You’ve got this,” Maggie said gently. “No matter how it goes, you got this.”

Alex took a deep breath and nodded solemnly.

“Ok I know you said it wasn’t cancer but this kind of feels like cancer,” Kara said. 

“It’s not cancer. It’s not even bad,” Alex said as Maggie gave her a small smile before walking out the door.

From her vantage point in the kitchen, Maggie couldn’t see the Danvers sisters, and as much as she tried not to eavesdrop she couldn’t help herself from overhearing the conversation.

“You remember Vicky?” Alex said. 

“Yeah?” Kara asked, before the next several comments became too quiet to hear.

The next thing Maggie heard was Kara asking, “What?”

“I’m gay, Kara.”

“Oh,” Kara said in such a flat tone.

Maggie started to prepare herself to console Alex when this went terribly wrong. 

“What made you realize?” Kara asked next, easing Maggie’s stomach back down from her throat.

“Maggie,” Alex said. 

“You have a crush on Maggie?” Kara asked.

“Kind of more than a crush at this point,” Alex said.

“Maggie’s gay?” Kara asked. 

Maggie smirked.

“Ohhh, that’s why you weren’t fighting,” Kara said. “And why you’re so touchy. And why you keep staring at each other’s chests.”

“Kara,” Alex said in annoyance. 

“You’re the one doing it,” Kara said. 

“But, you’re ok with it?” Alex said, her voice trailing off to a volume that Maggie couldn’t hear. The talking got very quiet for several minutes, before Maggie heard a very loud objection by Alex. 

“No, Kara, I’m not telling you that!” Alex said. 

“Hey, you ask about my boyfriends all the time,” Kara said. 

“No, you word vomit at me and I tolerate it,” Alex said indignantly. 

“Come one. It was a pleasure cruiser, for Rao’s sake. It’s in the name. How can I not be curious?” Kara asked. 

“No, Kara. No. Bad question,” Alex said. 

Maggie took the squabble as her signal to reenter the room. 

“I’m just saying, I had to ask,” Kara said, her hands in the air. 

“I’m not dignifying your question with a response,” Alex said. 

“Why are you being so weird about this?” Kara asked, before turning to Maggie. “Did you or did you not activate the party protocols?” 

“Yes, because Alex can’t read Daxamite,” Maggie said. “She turned it on during our escape attempt.” 

Maggie and Kara shared a laugh at Alex’s expense, until Kara’s face turned serious again. 

“Maggie, I’m glad Alex was able to find someone that makes her happy,” Kara said with a sad smile. “If anything, good came out of the horrible thing that Mon-El did, I’m glad that it could be someone who could help Alex realize who she is, and especially someone who can look out for her.”

“Thank you,” Maggie said with a smile. 

She felt that same strange optimism settle into her chest she had felt before, the kind that seemed to override her logical thought. These Danvers women seemed to do that to her, and Maggie made a mental note to stay on her toes so as not to be blindsided when the other shoe inevitably dropped. 

But no threat materialized, and the optimism seemed to almost manifest physically. Kara and Alex walked into M’Gann’s bar with the same sisterly camaraderie that they had when they first saw each other. Everyone else was already waiting for them with drinks. A warm welcome came from dozen of people as soon as they walked in the door, as a hodge podge of Alex’s friends, off-duty cops and out of uniform DEO agents, many of whom Maggie wasn’t entirely familiar with, congratulated Alex and Maggie on cheating death. It took half an hour of backslapping just to get the fifteen feet from the door to the bar to say hello to M’Gann in person. 

“Didn’t know you had so many friends on the force,” M’Gann said. 

“Neither did I. I should die more often, it does wonders for my social life,” Maggie said as she took the second bourbon of the night from M’Gann, taking a sip. “Wow, you broke out the good stuff.”

“Just for you. You were kidnapped for months, Maggie, and you didn’t even call once. I have to keep you around somehow,” M’Gann said before her face turned serious. “What happened?” 

“I got kidnapped. I was kind of more worried about the whole being forced to fight to the death thing than keeping up with my phone tree,” Maggie said as she swirled her drink. 

“Fight to the death?” M’Gann asked hesitantly.

“I mean, I kind of got out of that part of it. Kind of. But yeah, I was tracking a human and alien trafficker and it turns out they were running a fighting ring,” Maggie said. “So when I got found out too much, I got to be a star.”

“Who was it,” M’Gann asked in a hushed whisper, grabbing Maggie’s sleeve tightly.

“You know I can’t tell you, it’s an open-“ Maggie said.

“You know I don’t read minds without permission, but this is- Maggie, I have to know,” M’Gann said desperately.

“Why, do you know someone who regularly runs a fight ring?” Maggie asked. When M’Gann didn’t respond, Maggie raised an eyebrow.

“M’Gann, what the fuck did you get yourself into?” Maggie asked. 

“A lot more than was on the contract,” M’Gann said tightly. “But I need a name, Maggie.”

“So you can do what?” Maggie asked.

“I don’t know who you are, but take your hand off of her if you want to keep it,” Alex said in a deathly quiet whisper from behind M’Gann.

“Alex, it’s ok,” Maggie said as M’Gann turned around in confusion.

Alex stared for several long moments at M’Gann as she slowly put the knife she was holding back down on the cutting board next to a tub of halved limes, maintaining eye contact the entire time.

“That paring knife wouldn’t have helped you too much in a fight anyway,” M’Gann said.

“I have friends,” Alex said cryptically. 

“Would both of you stop threatening each other already? Alex, M’gann, M’gann, Alex,” Maggie said with an annoyed gesture between them. “M’gann, you can probably already tell what Alex means to me even without reading my mind on purpose, and Alex, this is my bar tender.”

“Bar tender is Maggie’s emotionally constipated way of saying best friend,” M’gann said as she extended her hand to Alex. 

After considering it for a moment, Alex shook it.

“Sorry. I can be a bit… paranoid, sometimes,” Alex said. 

“It’s understandable. Did you meet while Maggie was away?” M’gann asked, her mouth turning back into a serious frown.

“Yes,” Alex said.

“Was the woman who ran the fighting ring named Roulette?” M’gann asked.

Alex and Maggie looked at each other for long moment, trying to silently communicate to each other on how to answer. 

“That honorless bastard,” M’gann said angrily. “Jenna, you’re in charge until I get back.”

“Where are you going?” Maggie asked.

“I know where she is tonight, for at least another few hours,” M’gann said. “I used to fight for her here on earth, just to make ends meet until the bar got off the ground. She invited every fighter who ever fought for her to come for one last big event tonight.”

“You worked for Roulette willingly?” Maggie asked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell my cop friend about the illegal fighting ring I was a part of,” M’Gann said. “I just thought it was a little shady exploitation where everyone knew what they were signing up for. I didn’t know anyone was getting permanently hurt from it, and I certainly didn’t know there was human trafficking involved.”

“I can’t believe she came back to Earth, even after she knew we escaped,” Alex said.

“Sociopaths aren’t exactly known for their balanced risk-reward life decisions,” Maggie said.

“M’gann, wait. You’re not going yourself,” Alex said as M’Gann headed towards the door.

“Yes, I am. This is my mess, I’m going to go clean it up,” M’Gann said. “Besides, I wasn’t joking. As scary as you think you are, you really can’t stop me.”

“And I wasn’t lying when I said I have friends,” Alex said as Kara and J’onn both turned towards the confrontation happening in front of them.

“A Kryptonian,” M’Gann said with her jaw set.

“And the last Son of Mars,” J’onn said, crossing his arms. “And if you want to avoid any unpleasantness, you’re going to tell us exactly where we can find this Roulette. Now.”

M’Gann narrowed her eyes, and then shrugged. 

“You can trust them, M’Gann. They might be a little clueless sometimes, but they’ll bring the hammer down on the fighting ring,” Maggie said 

“Fine. As long as you promise me you’ll take Roulette down,” M’Gann said as her eyes flicked back and forth between Kara and J’onn. “And that you don’t hurt any of the fighters if you can help it.”

“Deal,” J’onn said. 

Minutes later, Alex and Maggie were calling in their organization’s various tactical teams towards the location that M’Gann had given them as J’onn and Kara flew towards their target. Winn had managed to set up something of a mobile command center around the bar as they coordinated several dozen agents in an ad-hoc raid.

“Lucy, can you get your dad to lend us some of his helicopters? Roulette might be heavily armed but I doubt even she’ll want to mess with fully loaded Apaches,” Alex said before turning back to Winn. “You have the blueprints yet?”

“Yes, and I think I have a way in. There’s an old storm drain that J’onn and Kara can fly through and come up under to catch them by surprise,” Winn said.

“We have uniforms redirecting traffic from a safe distance away, and three SWAT teams are ready to roll through the north gate with the triannual justification for SWAT owning APC’s,” Maggie said. 

“Good. Kara, what’s the situation? Are you in position yet?” Alex asked into her comm link.

“Yep. Roulette’s giving a speech right now,” Kara said.

“We have plenty of time, then,” Maggie said, earning a small smile from Alex before her face turned serious again. 

“Ok, we go with what we have in five on my mark. Alpha and Beta teams come from the south, SWAT from the North, the highway closes them in the from the East and if they make a run for the ocean they’ll be pretty easy to spot from the air,” Alex said. “This is las minute, and I’m sure no one here expected to be working this evening, but let’s do this right.”

The assembled cops and DEO agents nodded in agreement before they all went back to their duties. Alex let out a sharp breath of pent-up energy before she felt Maggie give her hand a reassuring squeeze.

“Hey. You’ve got this. We can end this tonight,” Maggie said.

“I know,” Alex said, pushing her hair back. “If everything goes right.”

“I know this has to be hard for you to not kick in the front door yourself,” Maggie said. 

“I wish I could be there for Kara,” Alex said. “Not stuck back here trying to herd cats.”

“You’re doing a great job. You have at least three different agencies coordinating and pulling in the same direction working out of a bar with zero prep time, about to make a bust with dozens of arrests. I’d say that’s not too shabby for someone who hasn’t even been reinstated to the FBI yet,” Maggie said. 

“You make a good point,” Alex said as she smiled and gave Maggie’s hand a squeeze before she turned back to her tablet. “Speaking of which, it looks like all the teams are in position and air support is just coming up to their staging areas. Alright, I’m going to start the clock to rock and roll at one minute. Everyone make sure to do their last minute check-ins.”

As the teams reported in one by one, Maggie could feel the tension in the room ratchet up with each passing second. As nervous looking cops and DEO agents anxiously checked and double checked their assignments, Maggie held her breath up until the last team checked in.

“Alright, stay sharp everyone. Engage,” Alex said, being in de facto control of the operation despite her inexperience relative to several of the more senior members of law enforcement that were present. 

For several long minutes, the comms were a mess of shouting and loud confusion as Roulette’s compound was stormed. Alex tensely followed the progress of the teams through the hallways as Maggie watched behind her. J’onn and Kara had managed to secure the cages with the abductee’s in them almost immediately, and the human law enforcement had rolled in like a wave as soon as Roulette’s hostages were secure. 

Despite a few intermittent exchanges of weapons fire, almost all of Roulette’s security showed little personal loyalty to her and laid down their arms without a fight. SWAT managed to catch Roulette making a run for a small boat hidden on the beach from their helicopter, dramatically ziplining down before she could push the craft into the water to arrest her. 

Alex smiled as the final piece of good news filtered in, with cheers echoing around the room at the news before the coordination of how to arrest so many people with such little infrastructure began in fervent earnest. Alex turned her headset over to Vasquez, relinquishing command before she turned to Maggie.

“It’s over. You won,” Maggie said, slipping her arm around Alex’s waist.

“We won. Roulette’s going to be the one staying in a cage for the rest of her life, and we’re free,” Alex said, cupping Maggie’s cheeks with her hands as she rubbed gentle circles with her thumbs. “And I have you.”

“Being kind of gay for the workplace,” Maggie muttered softly.

“This is a bar, I get to kiss the girls I want to kiss,” Alex said back before she gently pushed her lips into Maggie’s. 

“Hey Alex, J’onn wants to know if…” Winn trailed off.

“Told you so,” Vasquez said to Winn as Alex and Maggie turned back to a smirking Lucy and a visibly surprised Winn.

“I thought you were just fucking with me,” Winn said.

“Nope,” Vasquez said with a smile, as the group turned to Alex silently.

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t really planning on coming out like this, but yeah, I’m gay. With Maggie, obviously,” Alex added. “Because we’re dating. Well, a couple, I guess we haven’t really been on any dates.”

“Well, let me be the first to say that I’m glad you’re not dead, and I’m glad you got a girlfriend, Ma’am,” Vasquez said with a smile.

“Even though this cost me my rights to half my chocolate muffin for the next week, I’m glad too,” Winn said.

“You’ve told Kara?” Lucy asked. 

“Before we came over here,” Alex said. “She’s as awesome about it as she is about everything.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Lucy said.

“I guess that just leaves James and J’onn to tell,” Alex said with a relieved smile.

“And your mom,” Winn said.

“Huh,” Alex said. “Yeah, I would think that would be the sort of thing to tell her.”

“And I thought I had parental issues,” Lucy said with a laugh before turning to Maggie. “You sure you know what you’re getting into here?”

“Trust me, I can understand parental issues,” Maggie said with a smirk. “And I think I have pretty good idea.”

“It will be nice to have someone to keep Danvers on the right side of the law,” Lucy said. 

“Or help her get away with it better,” Maggie said, grinning as the corner of Lucy’s mouth fell a bit. 

“Oh, you’re going to just encourage her, aren’t you,” Lucy said in quiet concern. 

“Well, I think we better have a round of drinks to celebrate and so that Lucy can prepare herself,” Winn said with a smile. “And to apologize for taking over half the bar with a police operation.”

“No apology necessary,” M’Gann said with a smile. “I’m just glad you got Roulette and that justice is going to be served.”

The next several days passed uneventfully as Maggie and Alex adjusted to life back on Earth. Much of Maggie and Alex’s time was spent putting their lives back together from Kara’s kitchen table, searching for apartments and making seemingly endless phone calls to faceless bureaucratic machines. The time they spent not at home was spent mopping up Roulette’s operation with their respective organizations, debriefing as much as they could while it was still fresh in their minds. 

After Alex had a minor breakdown during her second debriefing, Maggie was able to talk her into starting therapy sessions as they lay on Kara’s futon, Alex wrapped in a blanket and Maggie wrapped around Alex. Kara found them both asleep when she came home, curled up together under the soft glow of the television playing at low volume. Kara only woke them when she returned with dinner from Alex’s favorite pizza place in Metropolis. 

The next morning, Alex shifted comfortably as she burrowed further into the warm body behind her. The comforting squeeze she received earned a small noise of contentment before an alarm on her phone broke the early morning stillness. 

Groggily, Alex reached over, her stomach turning to ice as she saw the notification on her phone. 

“My mom is driving down. She left an hour ago,” Alex said quietly to Maggie. 

“I was going to ask, but I didn’t want to be rude. You’ve met my aunt now, but it’s been days and your mom only lives a few hours away. Why hasn’t she shown up before now?” Maggie asked quietly.

“I have a complicated relationship with my mom, if you hadn’t guessed,” Alex said with a sigh as she sat up in the bed. “We got into an argument a few months before I ended up on that moon, and I basically called her out for making me responsible for everything Kara ever did. And given the circumstances, I think she wanted to give me some time readjusting to Earth before she showed up.”

“And this is even before she finds out that you’re gay,” Maggie said, filling in the blanks. “So you haven’t insisted she come out here.” 

“Yeah. I didn’t want to have anything bad to happen until I was ready for any weirdness that might be between us,” Alex said, squeezing Maggie’s hand as she wrapped her arms around Alex from behind. “I think we’ve both had enough of that for a while.”

“You can say that again,” Maggie said as she kissed Alex’s neck. “Are you mad at her?”

“No, of course I’m not mad at her. I missed her, a lot. I mean, we were just learning how to talk to each other again when everything went to shit with Mon-El. I want her in my life, and I know she loves me. I just know how guilty she must have felt when she thought I died because of the job I took to protect Kara, and…” Alex trailed off.

“You feel guilty for making her feel guilty,” Maggie said.

“It sounds stupid,” Alex said as she made a face.

“Not that stupid. You’ve mentioned that you never wanted to disappoint your mother, and she’s been in mourning for you, and now you have to be not only not as badly hurt as she thought you were, but you’ve got something completely new and different to tell her about at the same time,” Maggie said. “It’s not logical, but it’s not stupid.”

“What would be logical?” Alex asked.

“That she’ll just be glad to see you alive, because anyone who is your mother should be,” Maggie said.

“You’re probably right,” Alex said, her wandering gaze pulled back to Maggie’s with a gentle hand cupping her cheek.

“Alex. Anyone would be lucky to have you for a daughter. If your mother can’t see that, that’s on her,” Maggie said. 

“I love you,” Alex said with a small smile as she closed her eyes and let her forehead rest against Maggie’s. 

“Love you too, Danvers,” Maggie said as she closed her own eyes.

An hour later, Alex and Maggie were waiting in the parking garage for a beaten-up pick-up truck to roll into Kara’s parking spot. When the Danver’s family car finally showed up, Alex and Maggie moved towards it as a tall blond woman straightened up from the driver seat.

“Hey, mom,” Alex said weakly as Eliza rushed across the space between them upon seeing Alex and pulled her into a deep embrace.

“Alexandra,” Eliza breathed as she cradled Alex’s head against her chest. “Daughter, you’re here. I couldn’t believe it when J’onn told me. Alex, I’m so glad you’re back and I’m so glad you’re safe.”

“Mom,” Alex said as she clutched tightly at her mother. 

“I know sweetie. You’re home now,” Eliza said as she squeezed Alex again. They held the hug tightly for several minutes, both of them beyond words. Finally, Alex pulled back from the hug, reaching behind her for Maggie’s hand.

“Mom, I um, have something else to tell you. Other than the fact that I’m not dead, I mean,” Alex said. “Um, this is Maggie. She was… she was with me for a lot of the important stuff when I was away.”

“Dr. Danvers,” Maggie said as she extended her free hand.

“Eliza, please,” Eliza said as she warmly shook Maggie’s hand. “Thank you for looking after my daughter.”

“It was really more the other way around,” Maggie said with a smile at Alex. 

“She’s being modest. She’s the reason why we’re back on Earth now. I’d be lost without her,” Alex said. 

“So, both charming and modest,” Eliza said with a smile. “I’m so glad Alex had such a good… friend doesn’t even seem to cover something like this. You’re even moving in sync.”

“That’s um, that’s part of what I wanted to tell you,” Alex said as she looked down at her feet. “Friend really doesn’t really cover it.”

“Oh?” Eliza asked.

“We’re together,” Alex said firmly as she looked up into her mother’s eyes. “I’m gay.”

“Oh. Oh! I see,” Eliza said, as she took in how close together Alex and Maggie were standing, before her mouth returned to an understanding smile. “Alex, honey, I’m so glad for you.”

“I know this might be kind of a shock,” Alex said unsurely. 

“Not too much of one,” Eliza said.

“What? You knew?” Alex asked.

“Honey, you had a poster of that naked woman covered by a guitar in your bedroom for years,” Eliza said as Alex blushed deeply and Maggie smirked at her.

“I was just excited for Christina Aguilera to be on the cover of Rolling Stone,” Alex mumbled.

“I bet you were,” Maggie said with a smirk, and both Eliza and her broke out into laughter.

“I thought I was prepared for this conversation,” Alex said in mock anger as she rolled her eyes. “But I guess I should have foreseen betrayal.”

“I have photo albums,” Eliza stage whispered to Maggie.

“Oh god,” Alex said as she put her head into her hands to hide her continued blush.

The three women spent the day getting to know each other; Maggie and Eliza for the first time and Alex and Eliza reconnecting with each other. A lunch turned into an afternoon, and an afternoon into dinner the women bonded more quickly and deeply than Maggie had expected. She felt a strange sense of calm wash over her when she was with Eliza and Alex, even as part of her brain urged her to be on guard, that she had missed some hidden danger. But the blonde woman in front of her, for all the faults Maggie knew she possessed, radiated a strength and parental protectiveness that was impossible to ignore. 

Eliza, for her part, had taken to Maggie instantly. By the end of the dinner, when Eliza had hugged them both tightly in sequence, it felt like she was giving Maggie an official welcome into the Danvers family. 

Weeks later, Alex and Maggie finally found an apartment that worked for the both of them despite Alex’s desire for strange floor plans. Once Maggie had talked her girlfriend out of a loft apartment in favor of something with doors, they had settled into a cozy little place they found almost perfectly between the DEO and Maggie’s precinct. Neither of them was prepared to return to their jobs full time, as the hours of therapy both attended weekly attested, but they were both able to reestablish the connections they had been deprived of off world as they slowly caught up to speed with the latest office gossip.

It wasn’t entirely an idyllic existence. Alex woke from nightmares with distressing regularity, and then felt guilty for waking Maggie with her growling and snarling. There were days when it was difficult for either of them to get out of bed, as they lay curled together for comfort despite the draining, sapping dark moods that would fall over them both. They would snap at each other, at their friends, at strangers from time to time. And Maggie couldn’t help but notice that Alex constantly kept a gun within arms reach at all times she possibly could, even when she slept or made love to her. 

But despite this, it was possibly the happiest time in Maggie’s life. Waking up with Alex in her arms, her scent on her clothes and her skin on her own was more than enough to make up for what they were going through after their ordeal. Maggie wouldn’t trade the struggle for Alex in a heartbeat. 

So when Alex proposed to her a year later, she didn’t even hesitate about whether to officially join the Danvers family. 

She said yes.


End file.
